$67 for fryer oil? $78 for cups? For Charlotte small businesses, ‘something’s gotta give’
At Green’s Lunch, you can get a hot dog for $2.95. A hamburger will cost you $5, or $7.35 with fries. And at breakfast, coffee is still only $2.00 a cup at Charlotte’s oldest restaurant.
But it’s taking everything owner Joanna Sikiotis has to keep it that way.
She’s paying more for disposable plates, for chicken breast and for the monthly gas bill at her restaurant’s West 4th street building that’s served Charlotteans since 1926. The Styrofoam cups next to the soda machine used to cost her $24 a pack. Now, they’re $78.
The United States economy — and, subsequently, Charlotte’s — is in an unusual place in 2022. There are lots of job openings, but consumers are smarting at the cost of gas, rent and groceries. By some measures the economy is healthy; by others, it’s in a recession already.
That strange set of economic conditions feels nearly custom-designed to bludgeon small businesses, several local owners told The Charlotte Observer.
Freshly recovered from the pandemic, they’re facing higher costs, fewer workers and supply chain snags that are squeezing their margins from every angle. It’s a daily battle to keep costs low for customers — and, in some cases, keep their doors open.
“There isn’t one item that hasn’t increased (in price),” Sikiotis said. “Something’s gotta give.”
It’s not just higher prices stretching her thin. Sikiotis, 59, gets to work at 6 a.m. each morning and works several hours past closing time at 2:30 p.m. There’s been a “hiring” sign on Green’s window for the better part of two years, but applicants these days ask for wages she can’t afford.
“One (person) wanted to be a cashier, and she wanted $20 an hour,” Sikiotis said. “I sell hot dogs, not filet mignon.”
Higher wholesale prices
Six miles away, on Central Avenue, Tamara Imreish is facing a similar challenge.
Her Cedar Land store sells and serves Mediterranean foods on a street lined with businesses serving Charlotte’s immigrant community.
“It’s prices, it’s the supply chain, it’s everything,” said Imreish, who took over the business from her father this spring. “We receive some items and they’re more expensive than the price we’re selling (them for on the shelf) right now.”
Even after slowing slightly in July, inflation rates are still hovering near four-decade highs, lifting prices of essential spending categories like food. Imreish feels those increases daily in the wholesale prices of the goods that stock her shelves.
One kind of Bosnian flour is 30% more expensive than it was just a few more months ago. Bottles of olive oil, too, are significantly pricier.
Shipping delays are hiking costs even further and, in some cases, hurting sales. Imreish had to cancel a catering order recently when a vendor couldn’t find a truck driver, postponing delivery for days.
She’s even started counting the napkins, plastic forks and sauce cups she gives to customers at the store’s restaurant.
“It’s all these things you wouldn’t think about before,” she said. “Your customers are looking at you like, ‘Are you really haggling over a bag?’ ”
Last year, only her husband and her father were working in the store. Cedar Land now employs two additional staffers, Imreish said, but they had to offer higher pay to do it.
“I totally get it,” she said. “The $10, even $15 an hour is barely cutting it nowadays.”
‘We have to be very careful’
It’s not just the food business.
Obed Guzman owns Alma HVAC Inc., a mechanical contracting firm in Charlotte.
He’s been short on staff during one of his busiest seasons. There aren’t many experienced HVAC technicians in Charlotte, and when he does receive an application, it’s often an inexperienced worker seeking wages he typically reserves for senior staff.
Still, Guzman prefers being under- to over-staffed. “It’s better to be overbooked than to have too many employees, just in case the economy goes down,” he said.
Charlotte’s unemployment rate is 3.8%, near record lows. High numbers of job openings mean that, in today’s market, candidates hold the cards — and can seek out higher pay and multiple offers.
Guzman recently partnered with Olympic High School to employ students during the busy summer season. The state program subsidizes the intern’s $15 hourly wages, so Guzman only pays a third of the cost.
“That gives me a little help, and it’s helping these young kids,” he said. “I have an opportunity to show them what the business is.”
But price increases are still sinking his profits.
One burden has been fueling the service trucks he drives around town: “I used to spend $600 a month for gas in the summer,” Guzman said. This summer, it’s about $1,800.
And last year, he installed smoke detectors that cost $89.99 each. When he went to purchase the same one this year, he found the price had jumped to $285.
“And those smoke detectors have to be ordered six months ahead of time,” he said. “Projects that took three to six months to finish, now it will take a year.”
For Guzman, who came to Charlotte from Mexico more than two decades ago, Alma HVAC is more than a means of supporting himself. It’s a way to continue offering job opportunities for young people, and to help build the Latino business community in the city.
But to do that, he can’t lose his customers — so for now, he’s keeping prices stable for clients and taking the hit.
“We have to be very careful on the pricing because (if they increase), then we are not able to compete,” Guzman said. “But the cost of goods and the cost of labor is a lot higher than previous years, so our profit margin has been struggling.”
‘Difficult to watch’
And while Guzman is determined to keep prices low, other owners feel they have little choice but to pass increased costs on to customers.
Bruce Moffett runs Moffett Restaurant Group, which runs local joints like Barrington’s and Good Food on Montford. His restaurants are paying more for food, liquor and labor than he can remember, and it’s led him to raise prices for customers and take some items off the menu completely.
“It’s a mathematical equation,” he said. “When it gets to the point where you’re bringing in less money than you’re spending, then it’s no longer a viable business.”
Moffett used to find a 35-pound container of fryer oil for $23. Now, the same jug is $67. Scallops shot up from $16 to $40 a pound — so Moffet stopped serving them.
But payroll is his biggest cost increase. Even after boosting employees’ pay by about 30%, he’s still struggling to find enough staff.
“Everyone’s fighting over the same 20 workers,” Moffett said. “You just lift your wages and keep your fingers crossed.”
The hardest part, he said, has been seeing how thin the shortages have stretched his staff.
“I’ll walk in one day, and my general manager is... (working) on the line because the person that makes the salads needed a mental health day,” Moffett said. “That gets difficult to watch. I feel like I’m asking a lot more of the people that work for me than I have in the past.”
Trying to hang on
Sikiotis has also felt that constant stress take a toll. In June, she shut down Green’s for three weeks.
She told customers the family was going on vacation. Really, they stayed home and got some much-needed rest.
“It just got to be too much,” Sikiotis said. “It was affecting my health, it was affecting my husband’s health.” With a business staffed entirely by family members, she said there’s no such thing as a day off — or some days, even a 30-minute break.
She knows Green’s is one of the last ones standing in a dwindling generation of Charlotte restaurants. Other longstanding establishments — like Price’s Chicken Coop and Mr. K’s — closed their doors or sold their coveted real estate months ago.
More and more, she’s starting to understand why: “It’s not for the money.”
Sikiotis always told herself she’d see Green’s celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2026 before she even considered selling.
These days, though, she’s not so sure she’ll make it.
“I grew up in this restaurant. I don’t want to get rid of it,” she said. “(But) you can only take so much.”
This story was originally published August 15, 2022 at 5:50 AM.
