Carley Shimkus:
Restaurants that were forced to close their doors due to the pandemic lockdowns are still struggling to recover. Nearly 60% of restaurant owners say business is in worse shape now than it was three months ago. That’s according to a new survey and this might be why more than 70% say they’re understaffed, while upwards of 90% say they’re paying more for food because of supply shortages.
Buddy Foy Jr., owns restaurants in New York and Florida and he joins me now. Good morning to you, sir.
Buddy Foy, Jr.:
Carley, good morning.
Carley Shimkus:
Well, I’m really excited to talk to you. You have a very interesting perspective on the restaurant industry, because of what I just mentioned. You have a restaurant in Florida, in New York and you say the situation in those two restaurants is very different.
Buddy Foy, Jr.:
It’s very different on a few fronts, but it’s similar on a supply chain, which is making us very nervous.
Carley Shimkus:
So, you’re paying more for food. How is that impacting your business and how much more are you paying?
Buddy Foy, Jr.:
Well, our food cost is typically 25% to 30% of our sales, we’re upwards of 38%, 39% in both states. So the supply chain is a national issue, not a state issue, which obviously throws you where it’s a hard time making money in already tough business and the labor supply is a little easier in Florida. So that’s going to our benefit and we appreciate that in Florida versus New York, where we operate it at a very thin schedule in New York closing one day a week, not opening for lunch, dinners only, lunch only served on Saturday and Sundays in New York. Florida, we’re open seven days a week for lunch and dinner.
Carley Shimkus:
Yeah and I know of other restaurant owners who say that they’re closing up their restaurants in New York and moving to states like Florida, because it’s just so much better for business there. The national restaurant association did a survey. They found that nearly, this number’s unbelievable, 80% say they’ve seen a drop in sales over the past few weeks. So restaurant owners were better off three months ago than they are now. Why do you think that is?
Buddy Foy, Jr.:
Well, in New York, nationally? I think the news out there and the fear mongering, it’s real. I had a conversation. I’m in Florida, at our restaurant here because we’re opening up a third location. I’m getting that going. New York, I got a phone call from my manager last night. We had our first cold night in New York and he said, “The phone rang off the hook. We lost about 30 reservations because people couldn’t sit outside.” So this is literally in real time here, last night, 12 hours ago, we had this conversation. It was the first time we ever had 30 cancellations because the weather’s dropping. So there’s definitely some fear going on, especially in the Northeast when it comes to COVID and the variant.
Carley Shimkus:
That makes a lot of sense. I think that when we got the vaccine, a lot of people thought that things would go back to normal and, unfortunately, as you saw in the survey you’re experiencing it in real life. Things are not at that level, yet. Buddy Foy Jr. thank you so much for joining us and for more visit buddyfoyjr.com to hear more from him. Thank you, Buddy. Appreciate it.
Buddy Foy, Jr.:
Thank you, Carley. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Carley Shimkus:
All right.