COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Drive down Harvey Road on any given day, and you’ll notice something that wasn’t there a few years ago: empty storefronts, for-sale signs, and darkened dining rooms where restaurants once thrived.
For local restaurant owners, those vacant buildings aren’t just a sign of the times. They’re a warning.
“If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” said Tom Kenney, owner of Napa Flats Wood-Fired Kitchen in College Station and a more than 30-year veteran of the Brazos Valley restaurant industry.
That message took center stage Monday when the Texas Restaurant Association brought its biennial Texas Tour to College Station for a town hall at Napa Flats. The event brought together local restaurant owners, industry leaders, and State Representative Paul Dyson (R-House District 14) to discuss the mounting pressures facing the foodservice industry and what lawmakers can do about it.
“Everything is so expensive right now”
The Texas Restaurant Association’s Texas Tour makes 20 stops across the state every other year when the Texas Legislature is not in session. The goal: gather feedback from local operators to shape the association’s next legislative agenda.
Kelsey Erickson Streufert, chief public affairs officer for the TRA, said the message she heard loud and clear in College Station was one she’s been hearing across the state.
“The overall theme was just that everything is so expensive right now,” Streufert said. “Food costs are up about 35%, labor’s up about 30%, credit card processing fees have skyrocketed. Restaurants run on really famously low profit margins — so when everything costs more, they don’t have a lot of room to raise prices before they lose their customers.”
The numbers back that up. The TRA says half of all Texas restaurants were not profitable in 2025, a figure Streufert called “a staggering number and frankly a wake-up call.”
“Texas has had a strong economy for so long, but we can’t take that for granted,” she said. “Right now we’re seeing big businesses doing really well, but local Main Street businesses like restaurants are struggling because everything is so expensive — and at the same time, our customers are feeling that pinch. So they can’t afford to go out as often.”
A local industry under pressure
Kenney, who has operated restaurants in the Bryan-College Station area for more than 30 years and serves on the TRA’s board of directors, said the Brazos Valley is not immune to those pressures, even with the built-in advantage of being a college town.
“We’re kind of blessed here in College Station because we’re so dependent on the university,” Kenney said. “A lot of restaurants had an extraordinary week with graduation, Mother’s Day, and all that. But still, the restaurant industry is really challenged by increasing prices.”
One of the biggest pain points, Kenney said, is credit card processing fees, a cost that quietly eats into already razor-thin margins.
“We get charged 3% of every transaction, and it’s a huge number for our businesses that only make 5 or 6 cents on the dollar,” he said.
He also pointed to the challenge of rising food costs, particularly beef, and the difficult balancing act owners face when trying to keep menu prices affordable.
“You just can’t keep raising prices because at some point consumers will stop spending,” Kenney said. “They’ll eat out less frequently, or they’ll order less.”
Lawmakers listening
Rep. Paul Dyson (R-House District 14) attended Monday’s town hall, saying events like it are critical for understanding how state policy affects small businesses on the ground.
“It’s important to hear from them what we’ve done wrong and sometimes, luckily, what we’ve done right,” Dyson said. “We want to make sure that our policies up in Austin aren’t causing ripple effects, or that we’re not leaving something undone that is making it hard to have your own business, which is really the heartbeat of Texas.”
Dyson said two issues stood out from Monday’s conversation that he plans to examine more closely in Austin.
“One of them definitely is the idea of insurance and not being able to afford insurance; it’s something that could really put you out of business,” he said. “And of course, credit card processing fees. We have to see what we can do, what government can step in and deregulate to make sure they’re not being hit with those higher fees.”
The path forward
Streufert said the TRA’s job is to identify which costs are controllable and fight to bring those down through policy.
“There’s a lot that we can’t necessarily impact like gas prices, for example,” she said. “But there are other things like taxes and fees and insurance and third-party delivery that we can impact and help restaurants save money where they can, so they can offset those uncontrollable costs.”
She said the growth of the Brazos Valley market makes College Station a particularly important stop on the tour.
“There’s no doubt that this community is on to something,” Streufert said. “People want to be here, people want to move here, raise their families here, come to school here. And that means we have more mouths to feed, which is really exciting in our industry. So I think there’s tremendous opportunity and growth in this area in particular.”
But she was clear-eyed about the challenges that come with that growth, and the urgency of getting organized.
“2025 was an incredibly difficult year for restaurants and for Texas restaurants in particular,” Streufert said. “We can be defeated by that, or we can really get organized and get ready and bring policies to our lawmakers that are going to help and really put us on a strong footing to continue to grow and be the great place that we know and love.”
For Kenney, the formula for survival comes down to something simpler,K and harder.
“You keep working at it, you execute, you discover what you do well,” he said. “You are always trying to improve, and you just got to be consistently good. That’s what consumers want. They come to the restaurant, and we as restaurateurs need to deliver hospitality and food quality.”
The Texas Restaurant Association’s Texas Tour continues across the state with 20 total stops. Feedback gathered from each town hall will be used to shape the association’s agenda for the next Texas Legislative Session. All stops are free and open to members of the Texas foodservice industry.
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