SAN ANTONIO \u2014 A recent report shows what restaurant owners have been telling us all year long: that the cost of goods and fuel prices are affecting their businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sergio Calderon loves making his food fresh. He says he\u2019s seen it all, working from kitchens in Mexico to diners in New York to owning Panchos and Gringos in San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I learned how to survive,\u201d Calderon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He cited the Great Recession of 2007 as an example.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the pandemic,\u201d Calderon said. \u201cThis is the worst with the prices of gasoline and inflation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kelsey Strefeurt, a public affairs officer for the Texas Restaurant Association (TRA), said 2025 was a difficult year for restaurants. There was a sigh of relief at the beginning of 2026 that things would change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet, the second finding is that we are still in a very difficult economic climate,\u201d Strefeurt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The concerns restaurant owners had all year long were reflected in a recently published report from the TRA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A recent report shows that 77% of restaurant owners said the cost of goods have increased, while 66% say suppliers are now adding fuel surcharges because of gas prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood costs are up 35% since the pandemic, labor, utilities, insurance, rent, mortgage payments,\u201d Strefeurt said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are also the financial strains customers are feeling, which limits the foot traffic in restaurants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course they try to keep me afloat, and they come as often as they can,\u201d Calderon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Strefeurt says Texas restaurants become more efficient during times like these. Calderon learned that over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy overhead is low, and believe me, I\u2019m no quitter,\u201d Calderon said. \u201cI\u2019m going to stay.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 A recent report shows what restaurant owners have been telling us all year long: that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[910,1570,6294,223,6293,27,29,28,1569,835],"class_list":["post-335145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-business","tag-ctv","tag-jose-arredondo","tag-news","tag-san-antonio-what-you-need-to-know","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}