Here's why you're paying more for a salad — if you can get one at all
EVANSVILLE – The next time you try to order a salad, you might notice things have changed. The price on your favorite Caesar or Cobb may have increased, or they may have been removed from the menu.
It’s because of a perfect storm of issues causing a severe lettuce shortage — and it’s not the restaurant’s fault.
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“It’s looking horrible through November and likely into December,” said Randy Bush of What Chefs Want (formerly Creation Gardens), a major restaurant supplier in the area.
Considering supply problems and uncertainty caused by COVID are still present in the food production system and inflation is hitting everywhere, the recent bad weather and outbreak of viral and soil-borne diseases in lettuce growing areas of California have made leafy greens astronomically expensive – if restaurants can get them at all.
“We were paying about $28 a case for lettuce,” said Mike Reeder, owner of Commander’s Grill on the square in Boonville. “It’s jumped up from time to time, but I bit the bullet this week and paid $102.95 a case. I only got three cases, and they had to switch me from hearts to whole heads.”
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Reeder has taken large-sized salads and side salads off the menu, but has continued with small salads and other uses for lettuce.
“Burgers have lettuce, side salads, it touches everything,” he said. “We’re going to ride it out. We’ll be closed most of Thanksgiving week and hopefully something will happen by then, because 30-40% of our business is salad and we go through 400 to 500 heads of romaine a week. It will pass--it’s just another hurdle we have to face as we do daily. I’m optimistic it will get back to normal. I hope so, because I don’t have a plan B for lettuce.”
“It’s not just lettuce that’s crazy,” said Kristi Manna, owner of Manna Mediterranean Grill on Lincoln Avenue with her husband Amjad.
“It’s tomatoes, even salt. I had to drive to Owensboro to get gloves," Manna said. "Now we actually go out of our way to watch circular sales and run to stores to get sale prices on vegetables, which is weird for a restaurant. It’s bizarre.”
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A couple weeks ago, Amjad Manna took the menu and figured out what prices needed to be raised, but they have not implemented it yet.
“It’s so sad,” Manna said. “During COVID, everybody was suffering together. Right now, there are people that don’t even realize that there is an issue, and they are just shocked if you raise prices.”
Joshua Pietrowski, owner of Doc’s Sports Bar on Stringtown Road, has recently removed all salads from the menu. “We had five salads on the menu, which is a lot for a wings and beer bar, and lettuce is integral to our wraps,” he said.
“Ultimately, lettuce is just one example of the crisis mode a lot of local restaurants are in. It feels like almost every day another local place has closed or has cut their kitchen hours. For us, when we’re making decisions to up prices or cut the item, it’s not so we can make more profit and get richer, it’s so we can stay open. Right now, the carrot in front of our nose is staying open week by week and month by month. We’re just literally doing everything we can to keep the lights on and it doesn’t help when lettuce jumps from $26 a case to $103. We’re cutting items, raising prices if we have to and we’re still just shining our pennies.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: lettuce shortage causing problems for Evansville restaurants
