It's hard to swallow, but many owners say they're absorbing cost increases without raising prices to keep customers. Employees might share some of the pain, too. And it could get worse as prices continue to climb, some predict.
Many restaurateurs say they try to micromanage every overtime hour, every cut of salmon, every piece of produce -- in short, every penny -- to turn a profit while providing customers with the same quality and quantity of food they've always served.
Owners of local establishments say they haven't cut portion sizes or replaced expensive ingredients with cheaper substitutes because they want to maintain customer satisfaction and trust. Instead, they claim they're pulling in smaller profits and have focused on reducing waste while cutting energy and labor costs.
"The truth is, we take less money as owners, and you try to watch your payrolls," said Jeff Cohen, president of the western chapter of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association. "What other choice do you have?"
Kevin Joyce, owner of The Carlton, Downtown, talks to his chefs, line cooks and other employees to make sure they are preparing food properly and wasting as little as possible.
"That's one of the tools you hone in on," Joyce said. "It's all about handling the food, from the moment it arrives at your door to the moment it leaves. And you don't want to buy 30 pounds of salmon and have some of it not make it through to the customer."
Joyce raised the prices of some items three months ago but said he probably won't raise them a second time this year. He is using cheaper charcoal, but the ingredients in recipes haven't changed. To save money, he changed his employees' health care policy, requiring them to be responsible for the first $2,500 in health care spending per year.
"You have to cut things that you can cut. You find yourself making employees work a little harder, you find yourself scrutinizing overtime," said Joyce, who has lost customers this year. "If you can't raise your prices, you have to cut your expenses."
Cohen said food and delivery costs have increased for every product he uses at Smallman Street Deli, which he co-owns with Bill Wedner. He can't raise prices because he doesn't want to chase away loyal customers.
Cohen said he told employees to weigh sandwiches to make sure they don't give bigger portions than they're supposed to. He tries not to over-order food. His average daily food waste is about 3 percent. If he monitors it closely, that could drop to 2 percent. It doesn't seem like a huge number, but every little bit matters now, he said.
"Anything you cut is good, because you're not throwing it away," Cohen said. "You get nothing out of anything you're throwing away."
Times are tough in the restaurant business, but people are still working and going out to lunch, Cohen said.
Todd Viola, who works Downtown and usually eats lunch at Subway or another casual restaurant, agrees.
"I would say everybody still goes to lunch," said Viola, 30, of Sewickley. "For, like, six bucks, you get two big slices of pizza, a drink and a bag of chips. It's not that bad."
Viola said higher prices at the grocery store for items such as bread, lunch meat and sandwich bags -- plus the time it takes to pack a lunch -- make it worth it for him to eat out.
"Once you add all that up, it's the same as spending six bucks a day."
The reason it might seem that eating out is just as cheap as buying and preparing food is that restaurant owners say they're absorbing most cost increases and not passing them along. Atria's Restaurant and Tavern increased the price of steak and salmon dishes, but most dishes have not increased in price, said CEO Patrick McDonnell.
"Our position is, we've got to hang in there, that things will change, and we're in a position where we're taking the majority of these expenses on ourselves," he said.
McDonnell is relying on more efficient operating procedures to save money where he can. He made sure his buildings' windows and doors are properly insulated, and tells employees to turn off lights at night to conserve electricity.
"We're just operating better -- less waste, less mistakes, paying better attention to recipes," McDonnell said.
Even Eat'n Park, which operates more than 75 restaurants in the region, is using the same strategy: focus on the small stuff. The company has trained employees to make sure they properly weigh portions and keep knives sharp, which helps to reduce waste, said Brooks Broadhurst, senior vice president of food and beverage.
Managers ensure that trucks carry full loads and make fewer deliveries each week, to cut down on fuel surcharges. The chain has paid about $500,000 in fuel surcharges this year to transport food from distributors to restaurants, even though it paid nothing in surcharges two years ago, Broadhurst said.
The price of flour used to make Eat'n Park's signature Smiley Cookies has increased 80 percent since last October, he said. Still, Broadhurst is more worried about the cost of meat and poultry, items that haven't increased dramatically in price but might in the next year, when fewer animals are being raised.
"Most of our concern now is long term, because things like corn have gone up so much, and corn is such a cost input to items like beef, chicken and pork," he said. "Right now, we've seen pretty low pork prices because a lot of producers are slaughtering their herds because they can't afford to keep them anymore."
Some larger operations can negotiate to make sure costs don't rise as quickly. Restaurants that don't employ their own drivers to deliver food or supplies are billed by vendors for fuel surcharges, usually $10 to $20, on deliveries. Marc Teklinski, director of operations for Primanti Bros., said he refuses to pay surcharges he thinks are unreasonable.
"It's, 'Do you want to make some profit on our business, or would you rather lose the business and make no profit?' " he said. "We deal primarily with local vendors, and they understand Primanti Bros. is a good account, and you can't just keep passing on the expense to the customer."
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