{"id":418259,"date":"2026-08-27T14:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418259\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:32:11","slug":"are-we-still-going-out-heres-the-tea-on-the-local-dining-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418259\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we still going out? Here’s the tea on the local dining economy."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNobody really cares about supporting local.\u201d<\/p>\n

That bold statement comes from Russell Birk, owner of the now-closed Maya\u2019s Modern Mediterranean in Casa Linda<\/a> and current Venturity advisory services chief financial officer. Birk says the only time \u201cshop local\u201d mattered was during the COVID-19 pandemic. But now, using that kind of language to get people into local restaurants isn\u2019t enough to really move the needle for businesses. <\/p>\n

Maya\u2019s, which opened its East Dallas location at the end of 2018, actually saw an increase in sales during the pandemic and hit its peak in the years following 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, 2024 rolls around, and it\u2019s like the rug just got pulled out from under us,\u201d Birk says. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re wondering how an establishment can make it through 2020 but not 2025, remember the emphasis put on supporting local restaurants during the pandemic by ordering takeout. Those attitudes have faded as restrictions were lifted and customers were able to return in full force. <\/p>\n

Then came inflation. <\/p>\n

In 2021 and 2022, the rate of change in prices over the course of a year reached highs that hadn\u2019t been seen in decades, though that has come down since.<\/p>\n

\u201cRising costs of food, rising costs of labor \u2014 people are feeling it at the gas pump to the grocery store to the dining room table at a restaurant,\u201d says Corey Mobley, lead executive director of Texas Restaurant Association chapters<\/a>. \u201cSome of those costs are relayed back to the consumer. There\u2019s really no other way about it. We have small, razor-thin margins as it is in this industry, so as prices increase on the product that we buy, unfortunately, the prices on the product that we sell have to increase to offset the rising costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jon Alexis, CEO of Imperial Fizz restaurant group (operator of Birdie\u2019s Eastside, among other Dallas neighborhood eateries), has seen this significantly, even as sales are up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt costs more money to be busy,\u201d Alexis says.<\/p>\n

His establishments are avoiding radically raising prices and becoming \u201cfancy restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe restaurant that\u2019s charging $80 for a steak can charge $85 for a steak tomorrow, and nobody really notices,\u201d Alexis says. \u201cBut a $20 entree that becomes $25 is a much bigger shock to a guest and changes who you are in the DNA of a restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

If menu prices aren\u2019t going up, then in Alexis\u2019 experience, inventory stewardship has to be more efficient. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s twice as expensive now to overorder something. It\u2019s twice as expensive now to burn a piece of fish,\u201d he says. \u201cRestaurants are like sports. You win on the good plays, but you also get penalized on the bad plays, and every single little mistake costs more now, so you have to be even more of a detailed manager of the restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some operators also noticed changes in consumer habits. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who are at my price point are dining out less, and then people gravitate toward more comfort foods,\u201d Birk says. \u201cMaya\u2019s food was perceived as healthy and perceived as a little bit more expensive, even though we really weren\u2019t (more costly).\u201d<\/p>\n

Jen and Marty Reyes, owners of the tiki bar Swizzle, the physical location of which on Greenville Avenue closed last year<\/a>, noted a troubling trend in their industry \u2014 people are drinking less alcohol. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were making some great mocktails, and so I was like, \u2018Man, but no one knows about them,\u2019\u201d Marty says. \u201cNo one wanted to drink those. They just wanted to drink like Topo Chico or water.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jen also described Swizzle as outside the realm of what Dallas folks wanted \u2014 whiskey and tequila while watching sports. It didn\u2019t help that some folks had a different understanding of tiki than what the Reyeses created.<\/p>\n

\u201cTiki is dark and escapism through dim light and high-proof cocktails,\u201d Marty says. \u201cTropical is sitting on a beach drinking pi\u00f1a coladas. It\u2019s totally different cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Birk could do it all over again, he would have changed how he branded and marketed Maya\u2019s, reminding customers to dine there again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you open a restaurant today, you need to be TikTok ready, brand ready, Instagram ready,\u201d he says, adding that it\u2019s a \u201closing proposition\u201d to use unbranded packaging for takeout orders. \u201cYou have to walk in, and this has to look like a place that you\u2019re going to take a picture of.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Reyeses\u2019 Tiki concept has done well on social media, but it also projected an alternate reality where Swizzle\u2019s physical location was more successful. <\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media was our friend, so that wouldn\u2019t be something I would change at all,\u201d Jen says. \u201cI think social media is really the only thing keeping us afloat and still the only thing keeping us afloat. They only know about our pop-ups and our catering and stuff like that because of social media. So I think it\u2019s our friend, but I also think it can make a place seem like it\u2019s doing really well, even if it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

People haven\u2019t stopped going out to eat. Restaurants are still opening and remain a major attraction. But diners today are moderating their decisions to get the right bang for their buck in terms of value and experience, Mobley says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can go out to eat for lunch two times, and that would be the same cost to take your wife out to celebrate the anniversary for a nice dinner,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople are working; people are busy, too. I think we tend to fly through lunch hours sometimes and look down and say, \u2018Oh man, we forgot to eat,\u2019 which I guess is a good thing but also a bad thing for the restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reyeses are optimistic that the Dallas food and drink economy will recover. They recommend supporting local food and drink establishments, especially the independent mom-and-pops that tend to need the most help, before they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to go see a show at Granada and go, \u2018Oh, we\u2019ve always wanted to go over to this place here.\u2019 Well, go that night,\u201d Marty says. \u201cMake it happen now because, more or less, you\u2019re going to forget about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexis has another take on consumer responsibility \u2014 they don\u2019t have any. Going out to eat or drink should be the part of life that feels easy, he says, where shoulders drop from ears, and the world\u2019s problems fade away if only for a moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our job to find the right value equation for them, and it\u2019s their job to forget about life for a second and be the consumer,\u201d Alexis says. \u201cEverything is complicated. Man, your drink shouldn\u2019t be. Your lunch shouldn\u2019t be.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNobody really cares about supporting local.\u201d That bold statement comes from Russell Birk, owner of the now-closed Maya\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[145700,101569,145701,145702,145703,160,162,161,145704,145705,19993],"class_list":["post-418259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-birdies-eastside","tag-corey-mobley","tag-jen-reyes","tag-marty-reyes","tag-mayas-modern-mediterranean","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-russell-birk","tag-swizzle","tag-texas-restaurant-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418259","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=418259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}