‘Everyone I know is struggling with this’: Seattle bar owner breaks down why running a restaurant keeps getting harder

In light of a Ballard restaurant’s employees going on strike over a fair contract and better wages, the management group of Walrus and the Carpenter said running an independent restaurant in Seattle is getting harder and harder each year.

Speaking on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, fill-in host and Seattle bar owner, Mike Lewis, provided a first-hand look at what factors have made it tougher to stay in business in the city and some of the burdens he is forced to overcome.

“There’s a lot of factors, some of which the city has an influence on, and some of which it doesn’t,” Lewis said. “The city has an influence on various taxes and the minimum wage. Everyone who’s in the business knows that your big expenses tend to be your employees, either their wages or benefits. The benefits component itself is enormously expensive. It has gone up much faster than the wages have.

“Wages have gone up, and to say it’s not a pain point is crazy, because it’s a pain point,” he continued. “Everyone I know in the business is struggling with this, because that’s $1-$2 an hour, you amortize that over multiple employees a year, and it is 10s of 1,000s of dollars additional that you could be paying one person. That is not insignificant. But then there’s things that are completely outside the city’s control, the cost of living in Seattle is enormous, and the cost of leasing and renting.”

Lewis says small tax breaks barely make a dent in Seattle’s soaring costs

KIRO host Ursula Reutin pointed out how the show often talks about all the additional taxes that have hampered small businesses in Seattle, but she wanted to learn more about Lewis’s belief that minimum wage is playing a larger role than people may realize.

“I’m not front-loading it on minimum wage. I’ve been a supporter of raising the minimum wage, but I also see the numbers every single time, and I know how painful it can be,” Lewis said. “For example, the B&O tax break that former Mayor Bruce Harrell provided is, I mean, if that’s what you’re pivoting on, that extra $300 bucks a year, you’re not in business. That kind of stuff is a drop in the bucket. Does it help? Sure. Those sorts of things are like rearranging the deck chairs. They are not absolutely making any real difference in your ability to afford space in Seattle.

“I was in favor of increasing the minimum wage initially, but we’re starting to feel the pain of it too, and I’m certainly hoping we can let it alone for a bit,” he continued. “Let everything else let us catch up, because we have so many more expenses other than that. That is making it very, very difficult, and the cost of even just supplying your business is very expensive, not to mention business insurance, which is enormously expensive.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.