Photo: Thomas Barwick / Stone / Getty Images
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Running a restaurant in Iowa is still a tough business more than two years after the COVID pandemic.
The Iowa Restaurant Association says the issue is costs.
"The combination of an increase in cost of labor and an increase in costs of goods, coupled with consumer inflation is making it very difficult for restaurant owners to be profitable," says Iowa Restaurant Association President Jessica Dunker.
She says it's also hard for restaurants to keep good kitchen workers.
"Restaurants are being forced to poach good talent from one another--that's great for people working in the industry who can go and demand a little bit more money, but it puts us in a constant state of having to hire, train and look for new talent.” Dunker says.
Dunker says many restaurants are still limiting their menus, and the association's even suggested some restaurants take tables out of their dining rooms and only seat what their kitchens can keep up with.
Ultimately, she says the state of Iowa is now seeing a wave of restaurant sales--people getting out of the business.
“Pre-2020 restaurant owners are exhausted, and we’re starting to see sales of restaurants from long-time owners to other people where they just have decided that it's tough,” Dunker says.
She says other restaurant owners to took out a loans during the pandemic to keep their doors open are now having trouble keeping up with all that debt.