It seems the price of everything has been out of control for a while now. Please stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Given the fact that we’ve been talking food from Savannah to Beaufort for a lot longer than anyone else in the area, I’ve come to feel like I have a responsibility, if not an obligation, to be the bearer of news that doesn’t always sit well with the dining public.
Quite some time ago we co-branded Eat It and Like It as “The Voice of Food” around here. As such, when I have felt like a particular message needed to be delivered to the masses on behalf of the restaurants we enjoy so much, I’ve taken a shot at playing messenger in that regard. I’ve done it in print, I’ve done it on television – more than once. I think it’s time to do it again.
The cost of everything you enjoy eating is out of control.
Of course, that applies to your grocery bill and mine. But for the purpose of our gathering here, it is important to underscore how much it applies to the grocery bills being juggled by your favorite restaurants.
I fired off about a dozen text messages recently to chefs and restaurant owners across the area, from Hilton Head Island to St. Simons Island and a flurry of others in between. It was the same question to all of them, a copy and paste for the sake of efficiency: “Tell me something you buy regularly that is now ridiculously expensive.”
I wish I could tell you the variety in responses surprised me, but it didn’t. The reality is everything has gone up, from paper goods to labor costs.
I’m not going to share any names about who said what. Ultimately what these folks said is what is important. At the same time, there isn’t a reputable restaurant owner or chef out there who would want to be caught dead complaining to their patrons. They all know you have your own issues with affordability these days and are ever appreciative of any support they can get, particularly during the winter. That’s why I am choosing to share this now.
“Beef and labor,” one owner said.
Beef was a constant, with one owner telling me he was paying $3.75 a pound for brisket last year and it is now up to $6.50. “And we lose 50% of it when we cook it.”
“Mahi was about $9 a pound in June,” another said. “It’s currently $22 a pound.” Still another admitted that frozen cod has been more expensive than fresh.
I don’t know about you, but if I regularly purchase something for $9 a pound and it jumped to $22 in just a few months, I’d stop buying it. But how do you do that when you are a reputable seafood restaurant?
You don’t stop buying it. You figure it out.
That owner wasn’t done, either. “Really, everything is up 15-35%. Boxes of gloves have doubled. Anything in packets has doubled or tripled. Pork, chicken – everything is up and gas prices are down.”
“As fuel prices dropped, food prices continued climbing. Restaurants are taking the brunt of the heavy lifting there and we have the smallest margins. It sucks for the restaurant industry.”
Another chimed in: “A roll of aluminum foil is $60 and a lot of the disposables are outrageous. A 24 pack of 20-ounce bottles of Coke is over $30. A case of Dasani water is over $25 when you can buy a case at Sam’s for $7.”
And then there is labor. No employees, no restaurant.
“I pay someone $22 an hour to make a salad,” one chef said. “I’m actually glad to do it, because I very much believe in paying our people a living wage. We want them to be happy. But my wife makes $29 an hour as a critical care nurse. Put that in perspective for me. I’m not sure you can.”
One restaurant owner summed it up this way: “You know, we went from COVID to this tariff stuff and I’m not sure the prices have ever really regulated in the last six years.”
Are we getting the picture yet? Margins that were, in most cases, already razor thin are getting squeezed. There is only one way to make it work sometimes and that is to pass these costs along to you, the consumer – which, obviously, most have done.
I was out to dinner last fall, by myself (I do that quite a bit). I had one reasonably priced entree, one glass of wine. Add in gratuity and I think my total approached $70. Did I wince? Of course, I winced, but it is what it is.
And that’s just it. That’s my reason for sharing this time with you here today. Very few of us are going to stop visiting our regular eateries. Less frequently, perhaps? You already have. Trust me, they’ve been feeling that pinch since last summer.
But just as I feel I have a responsibility to share what these restaurants are going through with you, I think it is more than fair to say you need to do the same and remember that your burger isn’t north of $25 because someone in the back is getting rich. Or that your beautifully prepared seafood dinner is higher-priced than it used to be because someone is trying to gouge the public. Not at all.
It may seem cliche, but when you support local restaurants, you are helping parents get braces for their child. Maybe new clothing for back to school, or maybe spending a few bucks to fix a leaky roof at home or in the kitchen. It all matters.
Just something to keep in mind as we roar into another year, another spring break, and another high season ahead.
