2024 03 26
Chefs at Maman Zari prepare dishes for diners. Photo made as part of a Best New Restaurants spread for Chicago Magazine. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
One of my favorite podcasts is Joiners, in part because they chat with local Chicago hospitality personalities (many of which I personally know), but also because they do a great job of covering a diverse lineup of people from all different perspectives of the industry. Recently, this episode linked below stood out to me in large part due to the portion of the conversation where they discuss finances, insurance, taxes, government bureaucracy, and all these things most of us creative types cringe about but are also forced to deal with. Owner Jason Vincent of some favorite Chicago spots went deep into his frustrations revolving around operating at a higher price point in order to help cover expenses such as employee health insurance.
After listening, the following morning a newsletter by Allison Schrager hit my inbox which touched on the same themes and helped me connect the dots a bit more:
When we look at estimates of food prices moderating it does not tell us the whole story because eating out has become important to many people’s quality of life. In the last century, many once luxuries became common. Dining out used to only be a special occasion thing that now many households of all income levels do regularly. And that made lots of people happy. So did other services that became common in the last twenty years—like ride shares and fast-free delivery of everything (and seamless returns).
A tight labor market and rising minimum wages mean many services we’ve taken for granted are now a struggle, and that will mean people feel poorer because the things they enjoy cost much more.
Inflation is something we’re all sensitive to and is perhaps most easily noticed when dining out. Customers getting shitty about restaurants raising prices to pay for things like health insurance is understandable in part because, yes, some owners are doing it in bad faith, and because higher prices means less eating out so people are sensitive to it generally, but for the owners like Jason who are trying to do the right thing and create a working environment that is fair for his staff, it’s easy to see how this whole situation might be incredibly demoralizing for many restaurant operators. In out new fully globalized world, diners and consumers have been conditioned to seek out the lowest prices, regardless of how they get low, often without considering the tradeoff they are making in pursuit of that cheap mega meal. Rents are up, food prices are up, labor costs are up, (my hospitality photography prices are up), so it’s only logical that prices will need to increase significantly to cover all these new costs.
I have no grand takeaway from all this, but a better understanding of an industry I partially rely on to make a living. The food scene has exploded in recent years with new bars and restaurants opening seemingly every week. So many people now rely on restaurant work to make a living as these jobs are no longer fringe positions, rather a significant portion of the modern workforce with wages often reflecting a previous era. It will be interesting to see if this huge growth in a relatively-new industry can be maintained now that pricing realities are catching up to it or if people will go back to making more of their meals at home to help offset rising prices that don’t seem capable of going back down.
-Clayton
