Local restaurants are finding it difficult to stay afloat amid the housing shortage and rising costs of food and labor. Many establishments are cutting hours, raising prices and changing menus in an effort to mitigate the impacts.
“I struggle to keep staff all the time,” said Darcy Matteucci, owner of Brickmaiden Breads. “Some days we have to close because we’re not fully staffed. I’ve been trying to hire a barista for a year, and I can’t get anybody. People don’t know when they can get coffee, so they don’t come for it. At this point, I only do in-person interviews so people applying [from over the hill] can get a feel for the drive.”
California’s minimum wage has risen from $10.50 in 2017 to $15.50 in January, but most restaurants in West Marin have to offer more to account for the cost of living. The pay raise has depleted reserves.
In August, Luc Chamberland cut dinner hours for his Inverness restaurant, Saltwater, and is considering closing for November. He said there needs to be a plan for housing if West Marin wants to keep its restaurants.
“I’m not seeing a lot of bright news that’s making me feel warm and fuzzy,” he said. “I’m shortening my hours until the end of the year. The plans the county has for creating immediate and accessible housing are, to me, nonexistent. There’s a big divide.”
Mike Blakely, the C.E.O. of the Marin Economic Forum, said the challenges facing the service industry are complicated. Tax records indicate that more affluent residents have been moving into Marin since the beginning of the pandemic, making it unlikely that newcomers will significantly contribute to the workforce. At the same time, the resident workforce that is willing to take lower-wage jobs is shrinking, and growing economies in Sonoma and eastern counties have increased competition with better job opportunities closer to home.
“A lot of this has to do with the underlying dynamics of Marin County,” Mr. Blakely said. “A large portion of our residents are not going to take a restaurant job, and that means you’re relying on the existing workforce, or you’re relying on people to come from outside of Marin to fill those jobs.”
In Bolinas, restaurants are buoyed by the town’s local farms and fishermen, which helps keep costs down for restaurateurs. But scarce housing means that workers often live over the hill to afford rent.
The new owners of Smiley’s Schooner Saloon, Blair Harris and Chelsea Maissen-Kahn, said that over the last decade, several of their employees’ rentals have been replaced by short-term rentals, posing an unprecedented threat to one of the oldest bars on the coast.
“When I started here 11 years ago, everyone who worked here lived in town,” Ms. Maissen-Kahn said. “Now we have a couple workers from Lagunitas, one from Novato and one from Petaluma. They love being out here, but the drive is tough on anyone, and they can find jobs just as easy over the hill. Sometimes the staff stays in an open hotel room—it comes with the territory.”
The new owners said they are lucky to be surrounded by organic produce and fresh fish, but they still had to raise prices up to a few dollars on some menu items.
At Eleven in Bolinas, co-owner Rebecca Sterlin has already instituted winter hours, opening for just three days a week, compared to four in the summer. She said her employees all live in West Marin but also have at least one other job.
Since she gets her produce from local farms, rising costs of produce and gas have had less of an effect on her. Nevertheless, a staffing shortage and the seasonal lull in tourism led her to decrease hours. Earlier this year, Eleven was closed from January through mid-February.
“People that come to our trails and beaches don’t even come for the restaurants anymore,” Ms. Sterlin said. “I don’t really recommend having a business in Bolinas—we can’t be a year-round restaurant like we used to.”
For Coast Café owner Roseanne LaVoy, the rising cost of food means a balancing act between discontinuing certain dishes, offering smaller portions and raising prices. She acknowledged the need to raise the minimum wage but said rising costs throughout the supply chain contribute to inflation.
“[Raising the minimum wage] has a ripple effect so all of the people that box the produce, drive the trucks, etc., are getting paid more—the prices don’t just affect the kitchen,” she said. “Everywhere along that chain, the wage is raised. Then you add the price of gas that’s raised. That produce is the same produce it was a year ago, but it’s now a lot more expensive than it was. I’m no economist, so I can’t say how it’ll turn out, but it does require constant attention in running a business.”
Last January, there was no Caesar salad on the Coast Café menu because romaine lettuce was too pricey. Thankfully, Ms. LaVoy said, she devised an equally tasty kale salad.
In Point Reyes Station, the owner of the Station House Café and Side Street Kitchen, Sheryl Cahill, said hiring has been more robust in recent months, but she still mostly finds staffers from over the hill.
“The cost and limited availability of housing are the main obstacles,” she said. “Very few of our employees still live locally but many would like to either return or resettle here.”
Ms. Cahill, like many other business owners in West Marin, relies heavily on tourism and holiday rushes. When weather dampens an expected high-visitor day, it can have a big impact on business. Still, she said, regular local clientele has kept her establishments going strong in the summer so she can save for the winter.
At Brickmaiden Breads, Ms. Matteucci said the rising costs of labor and food have crimped her ability to sell goods. She pays staff from $19 to $25 an hour and offers a gas credit for people traveling from outside town. Workers from over the hill make up about two-thirds of her staff and hiring has been difficult since she bought the business in 2022.
Even after cutting hours, she struggles to staff the bakery and has yet to find a head baker or a steady barista.
“I was trying to find a head baker for a while. It’s a prestigious job so people were willing to relocate,” she said. “I had two people lined up but they couldn’t find housing and had to go elsewhere.”
The cost of organic eggs has more than doubled, from 28 cents per egg before the pandemic to 62 cents now, Ms. Matteucci added.
“Seven dollars for a slice of quiche seems like a lot, but we weren’t making any money off that,” she said. “I had to bump it to $9, but now, guess what? We don’t make that much quiche. People aren’t willing to pay the higher prices, so we’re trying to figure that out.”
Bread is laborious to produce and expensive to deliver. With the rising gas prices, delivery to and from businesses has been difficult. Expanding to Central Marin—one of Ms. Matteucci’s goals—seems like a long shot.