With the soaring cost of raw materials and difficulties in recruiting staff, Auscitain restaurateurs are struggling to get their heads above water.
“We, we in ch **”. It is in a rather raw but full of truth that the supporters of the restaurant Le Marceau confide in the current situation they are going through. Since the Covid-19 crisis, Guy-Noël Serres and Béatrice Bégué, the managers of this restaurant located at 19 bis rue Marceau, admit to struggling to find their customers from before.
“Some of our customers have disappeared with the health crisis while another has turned away from our tables with the cost of living which is only increasing”, laments Béatrice Bégué. The inflationary context is indeed leading customers to make choices, and restaurateurs, also impacted by this overall price increase, find themselves in a delicate situation.
Dishes removed from the menus
At the Irish Rock Café, at 1 place Bectar, the managers have had to remove dishes from their menu. “We removed the linguine with scallops because it was getting too expensive,” says Chloé Derre-Laporte, waitress at the restaurant. In addition to suffering a maddening increase in their prices, some products are no longer even available. At Marceau, Guy-Noël and Béatrice were unable to serve duck breast, regretfully because it was one of their key ingredients.
Auscitain restaurants face many challenges this summer.
But all admit it, to remedy the surge in prices, they had to increase the price of their menus. Isabelle, the manager of Isa & Cie, at 31 avenue d’Alsace, has increased her prices by 50 cents, “I have not planned to increase more for the moment”, she confides . At the Irish Rock Café, some prices have been raised by one euro, “an inevitable decision”.
Cascading increases
At the restaurant Le Lamartine, at 9 of the eponymous street, the manager and cook, Jonhattan Maumont has decided to create a menu in response to inflation. “Before, I only offered à la carte dishes for the evening meal. Now, I have a menu at 28 euros which allows me to secure a meal at this price.”
This decision comes at a time when no item of expenditure allows Jonathan to save money. All have increased. “In terms of gas and energy, I took almost 30% increase,” he admits, annoyed. At Marceau, energy is not yet a problem but risks becoming one. “Currently, we have a fixed price contract, but it will end at the end of the year. At that time, it could be complicated”.
The recruiting puzzle
Same thing with wages. “Today, recruitment is mission impossible. For 6 months, I posted ads everywhere and I had very few answers”, admits Isabelle, from Isa & Cie. “And when we recruit people, we are sometimes faced with laziness and disrespect,” she adds. Two new recruits told him by SMS that they would not come for their first day, when all the administrative procedures were completed.
Le Lamartine, which has been open for barely two years, operates with a small team. “There are only three of us. Me in the kitchen, Agnès in the dishwasher and Etienne in the service”, agrees Jonhattan Maumont. For him, it is mathematically impossible to hire a new person, especially since “even to find an apprentice is very complicated”.
Guy-Noël Serres and Béatrice Bégué, from Marceau, have chosen to work together. The only solution “allowing them to be in the nails and to be able to manage their cash flow more easily”. But the latter admit, saddened, “September is going to be the moment of truth. We risk not surviving if the situation does not improve”. For these Auscitain restaurateurs, apprehension seems to be the key word, but all of them force themselves to be optimistic. Only way out.
