IKE Chile in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has existed for 117 years, surviving a myriad of challenges like the Great Depression, the Covid-19 pandemic and a burst of inflation. But 2025 already has an even more complicated challenge.
“The cost of everything rises, and we must understand how to manage things,” said CNN Len Wade, a managing partner of the restaurant.
He underlined the increase in beef prices as an example, in particular hamburger meat in large. In July, these prices increased by almost 21% compared to the same month 10 years ago, according to federal data. And passing the male to customers may not be the best solution, Wade said.
Local restaurants across the country are in shock, because certain key costs soar and consumers – who remain nervous about the future of the economy – reduce and become less ready to hide at higher prices. Taken together, this forces restaurants like Ike’s Chile to rush for solutions.
“I need to increase my prices again right now, but I’m afraid I can assess people,” said Wade, adding that the restaurant had planned to refine the dishes on its Menu to reduce costs. But doing that, added Wade, could compromise the quality of the product.
It is not only the beef that has become more expensive.
The prices of other restaurant staples such as coffee, eggs and cocoa have also reached an increase in various points this year.
In June, overall food costs increased by around 21% compared to the same month four years earlier, according to the producer prices index, which follows the prices that companies, including restaurants, pay their suppliers. The increase in food costs exceeded the 17.5% increase in wholesale prices at all levels during the same period.
Restaurants have very little room for maneuver to deal with these cost increases before starting to eat in their profits. The trade war of President Donald Trump, who remains en masse, could continue to increase the prices of other foods, such as tomatoes.
“They generally have benefits of approximately three to 5%, so mathematics must work,” said Chad Moutray, chief economist of the National Restaurant Association. “But if not, then they have to close the store.”
The restaurateurs also feel price pressure on another front: work.
Since 2021, finding quality talents has been one of the main problems of small businesses across the country, according to monthly surveys of the National Federation of Independent Affairs. This obliges some restaurants to make a difficult choice: to offer higher wages to attract more candidates or respect the minimum wage, but to face long spells of staff shortages.
Wade said that in the mid -2000s, he would receive three or four job requests every day. Since 2019, he said, he has received a dozen in total.
“It is simply difficult to find good quality (candidates),” he said.
Trump’s repression against immigration this year also complicates the work situation in the catering industry. In 2024, there were about a million undocumented workers in the catering industry, according to an estimate of the Center for Migration Studies of New York, although this figure is now probably lower.
In addition to higher costs, restaurants are pressed by another trend: consumers do not eat as much.
In the first half of 2025, American restaurants and bars have seen one of the periods of growth in the lower sales of six months in the last decade, according to a CNN analysis of the Department of Commerce. This year has shown lower growth than even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when restaurants and bars closed due to locking orders.
The rate of slower spending occurs while low -income consumers continue to feel the weight of the higher cost of living.
In a recent call of results, Ian Borden, financial director of McDonald’s, said that low-income households jumped meals like breakfast “or they are negotiating either in our menu or they are negotiated to eat at home.” The leaders of Jack in the Box and Dine Brands, the owner and the restaurant franchisor, notably Applebee’s and IHOP, said they have noticed similar trends in recent results.
The layoffs are not increasing, but it has become more difficult to find a job in the past two years, and the Americans stay in advance while Trump continues with his volatile trade war, according to various surveys of consumer attitudes towards the economy.
American consumers have also been exhausted by years with high inflation – and they are not only the poor either. The American middle class also feels heat.
“Traffic in restaurants is generally decreasing in recent years due to the fact that the low-income consumer is underlined by inflation, but now the intermediate income consumer is also under pressure,” said Michael Zuccaro, vice-president of business financing at Moody’s Ratings.
Linda Ford has and manages several restaurants in the Metropolitan region of Tulsa with his wife, Lisa Becklund. Ford said there was a real risk that middle -class families decide to eat at the restaurant will simply be worth money.
“During our years of restaurants, we are clearly that guests are very oriented towards perceived value, so if the price no longer corresponds to their perception of value, they will leave,” she told CNN. Ford said consumers in the middle class are bread and butter of its restaurants.
An increasingly prudent consumer means that restaurants today have the flexibility to set the prices they had a few years ago, said Moutray and Zuccaro. This puts many restaurants in a difficult situation because they feel the bite of sales and lower rates at the same time.
However, there was no misfortune for each restaurant.
In New York, for example, “catering visits have continued to resume … in particular in Brooklyn,” said the federal reserve in its latest beige book report, a compilation of business survey across the country.
But the same report noted that times were difficult for food service companies in other places.
“Restaurants (in the Southeast) have reported depressed volumes while consumers increasingly concerned about the value have been exchanged or have chosen to eat at home,” said the Fed.
