As many of you know I spent years working in the restaurant business. After I left the business I made a commitment to help our local food service businesses by promoting them. I don’t get paid to do this, it’s a passion project. I know exactly how hard it is to run a business and how many times these owners walk into work ready to cook, but end up having to address broken equipment, staff no-shows and other daily dramas. So I’ve made it my mission to support them by sharing their stories, specials and keeping you up to date on the latest restaurant news. Sure I may occasionally get a free appetizer or dessert from one of our local eateries, but that’s not why I do it. I do it because I believe that these local restaurants are one of the things that make the Miami Valley so amazing. We are blessed to have so many local eateries, serving up so many different cuisines!
If you’ve every worked in the food business, you’d know it just grows on you. The passion, hard work and pride that these business owners put into their job is amazing. And very few of them will ever get rich doing it. They just love to feed people and share their talents for making amazing food. Watching them struggle through the last two years of COVID has been hard. The sacrifices they’ve made to keep their doors open, working short staffed, 12 hour days and constantly worrying about how they can take care of their employees is ongoing. I don’t think there has been a week that has gone by in the past two years that I haven’t been asked by a manager if I know of anyone that wants to work in one of their businesses.
This fall the masses have decided it’s ok to go back out to eat, local restaurants are breaking local sales records and yet it is still a struggle. A struggle to get product in house, find and keep staff and to deal with customers that just don’t always get it. Just this past weekend I was talking to a local owner and she shared her frustration with how some of her guests treat her staff. She runs a scratch kitchen -meaning all recipes, dishes and products are produced from raw ingredients. So when they start their prep for the day, they must guestimate quantities needed of each dish, and hope that supply chain issues allow them to get the product they ordered. But as I’m sure you’ve heard in the news, many food products are limited, suppliers 
are having issues with staff for deliveries. Did you know food supplier Sysco recently dropped their smallest 25% of accounts, because they just couldn’t service them. I’ve heard restaurant owners tell me that what used to be 3 hours of ordering for the week has often become 12-15 hours of trying to source product, pick it up when delivery isn’t available and paying almost double for a lot of these items.
Just recently Meadowlark owner Liz Valenti had to drive to Columbus to find the rice flour they use for their Eggplant Fries. So I share this with you all to ask you to please remember that we love that you are supporting our local restaurants, please remember to be kind to them as well.
Trashing a restaurant on an online review because they were out of your favorite brisket sandwich doesn’t help anyone. Believe me, they were just as disappointed when their order came in that morning without the 4 briskets they ordered. And while I’m on my soap box, before you keyboard warriors start complaining online, please contact the business and let them know of any complaints or issues you may have had during your experience. They can’t fix what they don’t know about. And they want you to be a raving, happy customer.
So this holiday season, please extend some grace to those working hard to serve up great meals with smiling service!
