SC restaurants face pork, beef shortage, and ‘it’s going to continue to be a problem’
As restaurant owners across South Carolina begin the gradual process of reopening their doors during the coronavirus pandemic, some of their food options might be a bit different.
Beef and pork shortages have hit U.S. supply chains hard, leaving some local restaurants either unable to get key supplies or having to pay extra for them, some owners said.
“The whole food supply is crazy right now,” said Steve Cook, owner of Saluda’s in Five Points.
Thousands of restaurants in South Carolina were forced to suspend dine-in services back in March, leaving businesses like Cook’s to see a drop in revenue with only delivery or serve takeout orders as an option for customers. Now that Gov. Henry McMaster has started to lift that order, demand has spiked again.
Earlier this week, McMaster allowed restaurants to seat customers outside, but a ban on inside dining still remains.
“When restaurants go away for eight weeks, not go away, go away but have a change, well, the broad suppliers like Sysco stopped stocking the things that we need, and to get them back in the warehouse takes a long time. So that’s what we’re experiencing. I know from my talks with the distributors, they’re just in panic mode. They’ll need to ship out 80,000 cases and they can only get 55,000 out the door in a day,” Cook said.
In addition, meat packing plants across the country continue to be shut down as workers are diagnosed with COVID-19, according to USA Today. It’s all added up to a scarcity that’s forced restaurants to make do without.
“We have beef and pork issues right now,” said Bobby Williams, owner of the Columbia-based Lizard’s Thicket chain. “We’ll be taking things off the menu that we’ve had for 40 years. We don’t have a supplier now.”
Items like pot roast and smoked sausage may soon be dropped because of shortages, he said. At the moment, supplies of hamburger are still stable, but shortages are on the horizon.
“We’ve been told that’s going to be a problem,” said Williams, who also serves as chairman of the S.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association.
At Saluda’s, Cook said they’ve had to make regular adjustments to the menu, copies of which being reprinted everyday to serve as single-use items.
“Right now we have a core menu and every single day we’re having to modify it,” Cook said. “Hopefully it settles down by next week.”
On Thursday, Saluda’s was out of bone-in pork chop, the owner said. “So we had to sell a pork loin that we have, to do the work in the same setup. We’re out of scallops til Saturday, they’re gone. Can’t get white fish until Saturday, little things like that.”
Kirkman Finlay, co-owner of Doc’s Barbecue, said his business hasn’t run out of any single menu item yet, but his supplier has limited him to two cases of beef per day, and pork products are difficult to get.
The resturant has been unable to order as many products as they’d like.
“We have our eye on the future, and yeah we may have to take off a few (items),” the state representative said. “And we think it’s going to continue to be a problem.
“I’ll put it like this; we had a discussion about what we do if we can’t get enough beef. And the next question was, well, if we have to take other items, what other items exist as well?”
At Maurice’s Piggie Park, the pork supply is good at the moment, said co-owner Lloyd Bessinger . But beef and hamburger are a problem.
“We’ve tried to stay ahead of the game and yes, there will be shortages, but so far supply has been able to keep up,” Bessinger said. “And of course prices have been going up too in pork and beef, but I think that’s just standard for the way things are going right now. We’ll just eat those costs as we go ... Right now, things look like they’ll be OK on supply, but like they tell me, it’s day to day.”
Even a national chain like Wendy’s is facing an uncertain future, with hundreds of restaurants forced to take some burgers off the menu when supplies run out, as first reported by the New York Times.
“We continue to supply hamburgers to all of our restaurants, with deliveries two or three times a week, which is consistent with normal delivery schedules,” Wendy’s said in a statement to The State. “However, some of our menu items may be in short supply from time to time at some restaurants in this current environment.”
But not everyone has been hit quite as hard — Wendy’s fast food chain competitors, McDonald’s and Burger King, both released statements to The State saying they don’t anticipate any changes to their menus during the current shortage.
And the local Rosewood Dairy Bar, which recently re-opened after closing for three weeks due to the pandemic, has been doing record business as of late and still has a full menu available, General Manager Amanda Crocker said.
“We have not (taken anything off the menu), unless we run out of things because we can’t get them, which does not happen very often,” Crocker said.
