COLORADO SPRINGS — The economy has been challenging for many restaurants across the country and locally. Some businesses have permanently closed their doors while others have expanded or opened.
In a statement from Denise Mickelsen with the Colorado Restaurant Association, Colorado restaurants are still have a long way to go before fully recovering from the impacts of the pandemic. The ongoing labor shortage is also hurting more than half of Colorado restaurants.
Mickelsen added that, “Restaurants’ profitability is being crushed right now, and it’s unsustainable. I worry that we’ll see more restaurants close as the year progresses.”
Spice Island Grill is a restaurant in Colorado Springs that closed its doors last week after being in business for 12 years.
“It was more costly to have the business open than to shut it down,” said Claudette Hutchinson, the former owner of Spice Island Grill.
Hutchinson said many factors were part of their decision, including family impacts, the pandemic, burnout, labor shortages, and inflation to name a few.
“With everything that's going on, it's not worth it anymore. The ‘why' has disappeared. Our ‘why' has just changed,” said Hutchinson. “We tried, we did it for a few years, but it was taking a toll on us physically, mentally and financially.”
She added that, they were constantly hoping that things would return to normal like they were prior to the pandemic. And while the community embraced them and the business for a dozen years, they knew they had to move on.
“The restaurant climate has also changed overtime in this area, especially with small family owned businesses. It’s a lot more difficult to manage the day to day, because it's all on the family,” said Hutchinson.
Meanwhile, other businesses in town are expanding or opening. It’s been just over two months since Munchies719 expanded from a food truck to their brick and mortar location on Tejon St. in downtown Colorado Springs.
“You get the traffic, and of course you have to deal with the slow months, but there is usually 10 good months, so that's why we went for it,” said Chuck Thomas, the executive chef of Munchies719.
Thomas’ wife owns the business. The two originally opened their food truck in November 2019. A few months later, the pandemic hit, but business kept growing. That's when they opened the brick and mortar location despite many restaurants facing the impacts of a pandemic, labor shortages, and higher costs with inflation.
“Opening a business of any kind, at any point in time, is a leap of faith,” said Thomas. “We realize there is rising costs of food, but everything always goes up and down. Wages go up and prices go up, but everything inflates accordingly.”
Thomas said while it may be the end for some other businesses, there are also many others, like his, that are just beginning.
“I mean business curiosity has peaked, so business is decent, but of course we want to grow,” said Thomas.
According to the Colorado Restaurant Association, more than half of business owners believe their profits won't improve in 2023. But, many restaurants will be trying to hire additional employees in the next six to 12 months.
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