Elevated gas prices have pushed the cost of food so high that restaurant owners find it hard to get by. But for most of the Polish restaurateurs, they can do nothing but tighten their belts.
“Everything has gone up,” is the universal complaint uttered by Polish restaurant owners. “Food, gas, energy, rent and other bills keep going higher and higher.”
Although Manhattan restaurant owners complain about inflation, because of their specific clientele – richer and more used to going out for dinner – they worry about the future of their business less than restaurant owners in New Jersey, Queens or Brooklyn, who really feel the pinch.
The easiest way to compensate for the loss in profits is to raise prices on the menu, yet hardly any Polish restaurant owner has opted to do so, fearing that higher prices will scare away customers.
“It is an interesting phenomenon,” says Polish-born Kostas Kiritsis, owner of Café Brama in Manhattan’s East Village. “People spend millions on their apartments in Manhattan, buy shoes for $300 and drive expensive cars, but when it comes to paying 50 cents more for coffee they complain.” Kiritsis swallows the higher costs in an attempt to attract more customers.
Even more determined to keep their prices unchanged are those outside of Manhattan. Their food offerings are substantially cheaper in order to draw hard working Poles in the neighborhood for whom getting a plate of meat and potatoes or pirogues at a restaurant should be an affordable alternative to cooking at home.
“Our clients dine here because of the low prices,” says Janina Grzelczak, owner of Lomzynianka, in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint. Many others, like Barbara Wisnowska, owner and cook at Chefski’s take out, in Wallington, New Jersey, fear that if they raise prices people will stop eating out and cook at home.
“We need to grin and bear it and accept lower profits,” says Krzysztof Drzewiecki, who owns restaurants in Greenpoint, Maspeth and Ridgewood; however, he adds, if production costs go beyond the threshold of affordability he will be forced to raise his prices.
Taking into account of the economic downturn, some restaurant owners have shrunk their portions to avoid throwing out uneaten food. “It wasn’t so much to save as to prevent food waste. Our portions are smaller now but still let customers leave satisfied,” says the owner of Café Brama. Ms. Wisnowska of Chefski’s applied a slightly different “food saving” strategy at her Jersey restaurant and now charges $1.25 for a salad that was free before but often end up uneaten and thrown in the garbage. “Now that the customer has to pay, he makes his decisions more carefully and will not buy the salad when he knows he will not be able to eat it. In this way he saves his $1.25 and I save on food that is not wasted,” Barbara says.
Is interest in eating out declining because of the overall inflation? Ms. Wisnowska has observed a decrease in the number of customers and attributes it to the fact that in an effort to save money people simply prepare their meals at home. On the other side of the Hudson River, in Manhattan, restaurant owners attribute dwindling profits to social trends. Mr. Drzewiecki maintains that even more than inflation his business is affected by the European Union. With borders gone, Poles travel to Ireland and Italy in search for work and no longer come to the United States. Marek Kurek, who owns Fireplace, a restaurant-lounge in Greenpoint, complains about the gentrification of the neighborhood that used to be chiefly Polish. “Poles move out of here. They buy houses in Queens, New Jersey or Long Island and do not bother coming back for dinner,” he says. “Newcomers, mostly Americans, have no ties to Polish cuisine.”
