When a deli closes up shop because they can't afford to hire people - it isn't for lack of customers interested in food. Food is a basic necessity that people will consume in as many varied forms as budget and tastes allow.
The notion that a deli would simply close up shop because they couldn't hire people at a wage they deemed reasonable means they either couldn't be bothered to try higher prices/quality - or for some reason they are unable to (e.g. high debt service costs). The building sitting empty and idle costs the business money, so it's surprising they don't at least try something.
Around here, 16” cheese pizzas have gone from “around $10” just 8 months ago to “around $15”.
Pizza places that would be jammed from 6 to 8 PM with a line for pickup are now ghost towns. The one I was in last night at 8:15, workers outnumbered customers (dine-in plus pickup).
The roast beef place that I’d frequent on a particular errand went from $6.50 for a large roast beef to $9.50. What used to be a 15-deep line at lunch is now “walk straight to the register and order”.
Customers are only willing to pay so much for food. That well isn’t infinitely deep. (Maybe some of the gap is COVID, but people are out doing plenty of other things, other restaurants seem to be doing well, and these places were jammed during the pickup-only phases of COVID, so I think pricing is a significant driver of reduced volume.)
Anecdotally this is me. I work from home 3 days a week, 2 days in office. Pre-pandemic I ate breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner in the road...2.5 hour commute. Food prices have increased 10-40% at each one of those stops. Now I eat one lunch per week out to socialize. The other 5 meals that I used to eat out are groceries I buy at the store and carry in.
The reason I was at this second-choice (also virtually abandoned) pizza place last night was that our normal/preferred pizza place had jacked up their prices so much. This one had done the same, which ensured that parking was plentiful right in front of the joint, but also meant that the owner was forlornly leaning on the empty parking meter rather than being needed inside selling pizzas.
I suspect I'll now mostly eat out when the company is keeping me on the road (and paying for it), but will overall eat a lot more at home now.
Probably healthier anyway, but this can't be good for restaurant owners and workers.
> Food is a basic necessity that people will consume in as many varied forms as budget and tastes allow.
Food has supply and demand like anything else. People have to eat, but they don't have to eat at the delhi.
For example, if they charged $50 a sandwich it would probably not work. Maybe the business owner is just being stupid, but its also not impossible that they ran the numbers and they just didn't add up. That happens sometimes in business. I havent seen their books, i dont know what the numbers on their business look like.
The notion that a deli would simply close up shop because they couldn't hire people at a wage they deemed reasonable means they either couldn't be bothered to try higher prices/quality - or for some reason they are unable to (e.g. high debt service costs). The building sitting empty and idle costs the business money, so it's surprising they don't at least try something.