CLEVELAND — The impact of inflation at the grocery store paired with lingering staffing shortages from the pandemic have left local businesses fragile.
“So prior to the pandemic, there were definitely challenges with the workforce, but definitely was a lot easier to navigate,” said Michael LaMarca, owner of Master Pizza. “Today, it’s something every day that’s a challenge that’s presented to us.”
LaMarca’s family took over a single location of Master Pizza in 2000.
“Over the last 20 years, we grew the company with a great group, a great group of partners, to 13 stores where we are today,” he said.
As consumer’s habits changed with the pandemic, so did LaMarca’s business model, and inflation only created more challenges.
“We wanted to focus on what we do best, and we kind of got rid of most of the things off our menu and just really focused on pizzas,” he said.
LaMarca said a year ago, he paid $85 for a case of pepperoni. But now, he said he pays $165.
He said the cost of salad, cheese, chicken and beef have skyrocketed too.
“It was just a challenge navigating that because they just weren’t going up,” LaMarca said. “They were going up every day. Every week it was just unbelievable numbers.”
This meant prices of his pizzas had to go up, too.
“We don’t like to raise prices,” he said. “We’re always wrestling that fine line of what we have to charge to what we want to charge.”
John Barker, president of the Ohio Restaurant Association, said this is an industry-wide issue.
“There’s just tremendous pressure on food costs, and that’s unique to our industry,” Barker said. “In the grocery industry, that pressure is very unique. That continues to just cause businesses to really have to kind of tighten down the best they possibly can.”
In LaMarca’s case, he sent out an email to his customer base, explaining why he had to get rid of certain menu items and increase the price of others.
“A lot of their responses were, ‘We’re not going away. We support you. In fact, we’ll come back more,’” he said.
For him, it’s the community that makes working in the rocky industry worth it.
“Listen, the restaurant industry is all I know,” LaMarca said. “I don’t know anything else. I would jump back into it two feet again, two feet all in.”
