HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) -- More than two years since the pandemic hit, we're now facing rising inflation and still dealing with supply chain issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is impacting the restaurant industry.
2020 looks like a distant memory for many Harrisburg restaurants, but the bounce back is not always consistent.
"Until just recently, we really, our sales really, they took a turn for the better," William Derrick, bar manager at Stock's on 2nd, said. "Within the past couple weeks, we've really hit a wall."
Derrick said the beginning of summer is typically a slower time of year for them, but things are looking worse than usual.
"I mean, it's Friday evening and there's no one here, so that hurts," he said.
Some restaurants are doing better than others.
"It's grand, it's great, we have restaurants full of people," Lance Smith, culinary director at Cork & Fork said. "We haven't seen really a business volume decrease."
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However, both restaurants are facing new obstacles. Derrick said supply chain issues are keeping things off the shelves.
"There's some whiskey that we can't even get a hold of that we used to have all the time," he said.
For Smith, inflation is causing the biggest challenges.
"The prices are all just drastically changing and shifting by the day sometimes," he said. "We have things that literally triple and double overnight sometimes."
Smith and Derrick are doing their best not to pass the cost on to customers.
"For the most part, I don't think our prices have been raised too much," Derrick said.
Smith said the logistics of changing the prices often stop the restaurant from doing so.
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"The business tends to just eat the cost of it," he said.
Even with those efforts, inflation is still hitting people's wallets elsewhere.
"Making people feel less comfortable to go out and spend money that they might want to hold on to," Derrick said, adding even he is tightening his budget.
Not everything is quite this challenging. The severe staffing shortages many restaurants saw in 2021 are not as much of a problem.
"We're not fully staffed like we were before the pandemic, but we've gotten incrementally better since the pandemic," Derrick said.
As we round the corner towards summer, Smith and Derrick both want to see more tables filled.
"If it does pick up soon, then I'll feel pretty comfortable," Derrick said.
"We just honestly want to see more people coming out to eat and just having a great time," Smith said.
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