What's irksome about it? It's an indicator that inflation/prices have outpaced wages. Should we no longer be concerned with livability? Only with returns on capital?

The response is in context of someone complaining they cannot afford something.

If I am complaining that I cannot afford a private chef in my home, then the answer is for me to figure out how to earn more. Or go without a chef.

It is the same thing for a restaurant. Either figure out how to make more money (even if it means closing the business and changing your line of work, or figure out how make do without the chef).

Especially considering this was caused by the government passing out money for too long in addition to telling everyone to not bother paying their rent. Plenty of places have been offering $15-$20/hour and have struggled to find help since why would you work when unemployment pays more?

A lot of people used the time they were involuntarily let go to up-skill into better-paying careers. This resulted in a labor shortage in minimum-wage jobs, regardless of unemployment benefits (that have since lapsed in a chunk of states). Market forces are at play here, there's no reason to special-case labor when small businesses can handle increases in the other costs (gas, lumber, aluminum, steel, etc), the only reason I can think of is because they think they can bully the suppliers (of labor), or lobby the government to do that on their behalf.