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If you can't afford to pay enough to retain labor, you need to charge more for your products or give labor equity. If you can't make money doing this (ROI not good enough if equity is diluted or people won't pay more for what you're selling) then you should not be in business.

The issue I have with restaurants saying they cant pay more is that FOH staff often bring in close to 10x of BOH. So there's actually plenty of money to go around, it just comes in the form of a mandatory 20% tip to a single person. Eliminate tipping, raise your prices, pay all your employees on an equivalent scale, give them healthcare and vacation time, and watch the "shortage" go away.

The article describes growth in the number of restaurants (and thus customer demand, more people dining out), so restaurants could increase prices.