It's been painful watching my family members who own a restaurant and a bar.

I think this post still misses the mark.

Food prices are not up 5-15%, based on what my family is seeing it's up 40-50%. They're desperately trying to find cheaper solutions.

In addition to that, when the restaurants were forced to be shut down in 2020, people switched roles. People started working at Amazon and other companies.

Now there's a shortage of cooks, bar-tenders, etc. Previously, they were paying $7/hr + tips for a bar-tender. Now, they can't get people to apply for under $15/hr + tips. My one family member cannot even find a cook and they're offering 50% more than they were in 2019 -- $30/hr. So they're working 12-14 hr days, 7 days a week to keep the place running.

Combined with increased costs, there was a drop of 20% or so of patrons (compared to 2019) and patrons are more price sensitive.

To me, it's clear from reading this comments that many people do not understand the economics of a restaurants. Which are far different than chain fast-food place locations.