{"id":131684,"date":"2025-10-19T08:38:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T08:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/131684\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T08:38:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T08:38:22","slug":"california-restaurant-owner-says-tariffs-inflation-leave-him-barely-breaking-even","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/131684\/","title":{"rendered":"California restaurant owner says tariffs, inflation leave him “barely breaking even”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Inglewood, California \u2014 One family’s legacy, an Italian restaurant called Sunday Gravy that’s been operating for decades, is now “barely breaking even,” owner Sol Bashirian says, as tariffs<\/a> and inflation<\/a> are eating into its profits.<\/p>\n

“It’s just the reality of where the food industry is at,” Bashirian told CBS News, noting he’s spending thousands of dollars more each month on imported ingredients.<\/p>\n

His family has been in business in Inglewood, California, just south of Los Angeles, for decades, and has seen a 30% bump in sales since last year. But the family’s legacy could go stale. <\/p>\n

“My dad put an offer together, and grabbed all his savings and bought this place. And here we are now, almost 50 years later,” Bashirian said.<\/p>\n

Financial analyst R.J. Hottovy with Placer.ai \u2014 a real estate software company that advises restaurants across the U.S. \u2014 says eateries that cater to lower- and middle-income consumers are hurting financially<\/a>, and so are their customers.<\/p>\n

“That group is facing cost pressures on a number of fronts, not just food, but other things like rent and inflation,” Hottovy said.<\/p>\n

A report released earlier this month<\/a> by the cloud-based management company Toast shows that 48% of the restaurants surveyed plan to raise menu prices if costs continue to rise.<\/p>\n

The National Restaurant Association says menu prices would need to increase by 30.3% just to maintain a thin profit margin of 5% under the current economic conditions.<\/p>\n

“It sounds easy, but there is a process behind it,” Bashirian said. “It’s reprinting a menu, and the printing costs associated with that.”<\/p>\n

Bashirian says the sticker shock of a price hike could “absolutely” drive away customers from even coming to the restaurant.<\/p>\n

“It’s pasta, and pasta is not supposed to be crazy expensive,” Bashirian said.<\/p>\n

For now, Sunday Gravy is adding a 5% surcharge on the bill to offset tariffs. Under California law, restaurant owners are allowed to add an extra fee if it’s “clearly and conspicuously displayed” on menus.<\/p>\n

“There is price fatigue,” Hottovy said. “I think consumers have been paying higher prices for many years. And there is a breaking point for a lot of these consumers.”<\/p>\n

The National Restaurant Association is pushing for imported food and beverages to be exempt from the Trump administration’s tariffs, arguing that hikes could cost the industry billions this year alone.<\/p>\n

“It would allow us to at least have an attempt at a fighting chance, and flourishing and continuing on,” Bashirian said of the possibility of receiving relief from tariffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inglewood, California \u2014 One family’s legacy, an Italian restaurant called Sunday Gravy that’s been operating for decades, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,1374,179,18,19,78997,78994,17,78996,5281,78995,1255],"class_list":{"0":"post-131684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-imported-food","14":"tag-inglewood","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-national-restaurant-association","17":"tag-restaurant","18":"tag-sol-bashirian","19":"tag-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}