SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - As the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the supply chain across the country, South Florida restaurants are struggling with rapid price swings due to growing meat shortages.
The new hurdle comes nearly two months after sit-down dining was banned in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, as well as in other parts of the Sunshine State.
While that’s not preventing the griddle to sizzle at Taco Rico in Southwest Miami-Dade, the owner of the South Florida Tex-Mex chain, Lee Neal, said it’s far from business as usual.
“A lot of sleepless nights, a lot of sleepless nights,” he said.
Neal said sales at his restaurants are down about 30%. Now he has to deal with surging meat prices.
Before the pandemic, restaurants could purchase ground beef for under $2 a pound, but Taco Rico just paid $3.90 a pound.
“We absorb it all, so if ground beef doubles, that’s just more money out of our pockets,” said Neal.
Neal said the price of pork has also skyrocketed, from around $1.20 a pound to $3.
“In the last month, prices have started changing rapidly, daily,” said Neal, “and in the last week and a half, they’ve really jumped.”
Neal’s business partner, food distributor Howard Levrant, secures orders for many South Florida restaurants
“We also have quota, and we’re putting quotas on our customers sometimes, that you can’t buy 50 cases of something and stick it in your freezer, he said. You can buy, like, five at a time or two at a time, so that there’s enough to go around to our customers.”
Also feeling the pinch is Mei Yu, who owns Tropical Chinese Restaurant in Southwest Miami-Dade.
“The restaurant business is already tough by itself. With this whole pandemic, it’s really, really tough,” she said.
The California factory where Yu buys her fresh egg noodles just closed because of COVID-19, so even though her restaurant is not turning a profit at the moment, she dipped into her savings to scoop up all the noodles she could out of concern that soon there won’t be any supply.
“Thank God I have some savings,” she said.
Yu already can no longer get Asian taro root for her Taro Shrimp Patty, so that item is off the menu.
Despite tight funds, Yu said she will rent a refrigerated truck to store her large noodle purchase.
“It is crazy, but you gotta do what you gotta do in these difficult times, right?” she said.
Back at Taco Rico, Neal said that despite the increase in meat prices, he will not be raising the prices on his menu. He said it would cost him a fortune to reprint thousands of menus and change all of his signage.
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