Delmarva Restaurant Industry taking a hit for January
DELMARVA – January is known to be the off season for a lot of restaurants in costal towns, but it also seems to be impacting the industry across Delmarva. Ocean City restaurants’ have seen an even slower January than usual, and one local spot in Seaford is struggling to make ends meet.
The owner of Nothing Better LLC said, “as long as you can survive through January and February, things should be okay… for the most part.”
Restaurants across Delmarva are taking a bigger hit than usual during the off season. Even with January being notoriously bad for business, Ocean City Business Owner John Fager says this year has been worst.
“This year was a little bit more difficult,” Fager said. “Fager’s Island, Bad Monkey and any hotel in Berlin, we experienced approximately a 35% decline in revenue compared to already a bad January.”
Restaurants in Delaware are also seeing similar signs of slow business. Owner of Nothing Better, Nick Bohenko, says his business has seen a 25% decrease in sales since December.
“Sometimes even into March it’s on the slower side,” Bohenko said. “By mid March, it starts to pick up for Spring.”
This has forced restaurant owners to continuously find new vendors that have both quality ingredients and affordable prices with inflation increasing.
“Prices keep rising for anybody who is in the area where we have to buy product.”
Being in a rural area, Nick says it can cost his business more money to have ingredients shipped to him with changes in prices of gas and diesel. This fuel surcharge is what causes some vendors to raise their prices.
“If we can provide the customer with great service and great food and great quality, then I think we can continue surviving, but if we lose the community, then I don’t think we will survive.”
Despite the increase in price of ingredients, Nick Bohenko has limited increasing the cost of his food as much as possible, and he says he’s also giving even larger portions of his food to customers than before the pandemic.
