The price of chicken has doubled. The price of lobster is up 28%.
Pine nuts--an ingredient in pesto--are $166 for a five pound bag, or $33 per pound, wholesale.
Eric Swoyer, the head chef at Scallions on Lake Avenue in Saratoga Springs, said, “That’s more expensive than, than--”
“Cocaine,” his food distributor quipped.
In Schuylerville on Spring Street, Cassandra Wilusz of Revolution Cafe paid $92 for a 40-pound case of chicken breasts, up from $42 last week.
“Did you just hear me yelling at my distributor?” she joked.
The problems that restaurants are facing did not end when Gov. Andrew Cuomo upped restaurant capacity to 100%, a rule that goes into effect May 19.
In fact, the announcement seems to have affected the industry little in the readership area of FoothillsBusinessDaily.com.
“What does 100% do for anybody? It’s not helping,” said David Shulman, who owns Beyond the Sea and the newly-opening taco shop, Cantina-32, on Lake Shore Drive in Bolton Landing. This was echoed throughout the area.
First, restaurants still must keep diners six feet apart, a table arrangement already created in most restaurants. Increasing their current seating arrangements will run afoul of the law. And it is not just tables. When just four people sit at the bar in Beyond the Sea, Shulman said, he must tell the next person who bellies up: “Sorry, I’m full.”
Second, they cannot find workers. Rick Davidson of Davidson Brothers Brewery on Glen Street in Glens Falls said recent attempts to hire more people drew little attention: “I mean, basically no applications.”
Third, prices for some basic items are skyrocketing. Napkins, paper menus, paper bags, and personal protective equipment like latex or nitrile gloves, all have increased, people said. Gloves that used to cost as little as $40 per 1,000 are now $200, Eric Swoyer said.
Are those three some key issues, Liz Swoyer, the front-of-house manager and owner at Scallions, wondered aloud. "Check, check and check."
Mark McNary a distributor with Performance Foodservice displayed a laptop screen of emails, and then he scrolled down a few screens. One email after the other listed a price increase. He pointed to the dates. All the emails had arrived since the start of May.
Eric Swoyer said a well-run, small restaurant like Scallions used to have a pre-pandemic profit of 10% or 20% per year.
“I don’t think we’ll see a profit for another three years,” the chef said on Wednesday.
Wilusz in Schuylerville said the changeover from plastic to paper bags mid-COVID added an expense she did not expect. Although it was not too much, the frustration comes.
“It’s just all these little costs of day-to-day business,” she said.
The problem, some owners believe, is the stimulus money and healthy unemployment payments that are keeping people home. The lack of workers means fewer people in the restaurants to handle the customers and fewer people in the food processing centers to prepare the food for distribution.
Eric Swoyer said he understands that people might be afraid to come back, but it is time to get the vaccination and return to work.
McNary, the distributor, thinks the best option would be to let people double-dip. People should be allowed to keep receiving the government payments and work for pay at the same time. He said he knows it is unfair to those working, he said, frustration in his voice.
"Just get them back to work," he said.
And yet the country is waking up from a year-long sleep, and the owners feel that media stories so far have fed a narrative that everything is waiting and ready for them.
It’s going to make for an interesting summer, if Rick Davidson’s view is right. Customers have been home, wishing to get away, and they haven't spent all their money.
The brewery owner said, “They are going to want to make up for that.”
Tomorrow: the new PPP, the Post-Pandemic-Pivot.