Payroll News

Eatery samples cheap eats

The Yellow Dog Lantern Restaurant has an answer to falling stock prices, the national credit crunch and turmoil in world financial markets. It’s called “the recession menu.” “Even people who have money are scared to spend it right now,” said Janet Clinger, owner. “I just tried to come up with something for people who are afraid to spend money.” So, from 5 to 7 p.m., recession-menu diners pay $10 a meal and get a choice of nine entrees. Choices include stuffed chicken breast, Hawaiian pork chop with sweet-and-sour sauce, and linguine with white clam sauce. The $10 price is a break from the regular prices for prime rib, veal and fish dishes that cost up to $20. The restaurant is an upscale dining establishment that has survived in a small town that has taken its economic lumps over the years.

But it has not been easy for a restaurant like the Yellow Dog Lantern to hang on. “Times are tough for everyone right now, but times have been tough here for a while,” Williams said. “We have to be resourceful businesspeople and work very hard and rely on customer relationships.”
But the Yellow Dog Lantern is hardly the only restaurant suffering. Annika Stensson, spokesman for the National Restaurant Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade organization, said restaurants have not seen an economy this tough in 17 years — since the downturn in 1991. The industry, 70 percent of which is single-unit operators, has been buffeted by soaring food prices, growing labor costs and energy price spikes.
The trade association compiles a monthly national restaurant performance index. The latest figures were for August — before the crisis in financial markets — and that report showed soft performance figures for the 10th straight month. Those numbers are expected to worsen for September and October. “Restaurant owners tend to be an optimistic bunch overall, but according to our research, their outlook for the next six months is dampened by the current situation,” Stensson said.

Filed under: Restaurant News