New Orleans restaurateur Neal Bodenheimer warns that looming tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods pose a significant risk to restaurants' financial viability. With razor-thin margins and supply chain disruptions, restaurants like his neighborhood Mexican establishment are particularly vulnerable. Although there has been a temporary pause on proposed tariffs, uncertainty abounds. Bodenheimer recalls past experiences dealing with tariffs that led to menu adjustments and higher consumer prices, stressing that restaurateurs will inevitably have to pass increased costs onto customers, particularly through persistent fuel surcharges and product price raises.
When you already have slim margins in restaurants and bars, you tap away little by little at the margin, until there's nothing left.
Restaurants are flow-through businesses. We're going to have to pay more for the products, and we're going to charge more.
We've seen many fuel surcharges that happen when costs go up and the surcharges never come off.
It's just another cut in the death by a thousand cuts.
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