The hits keep coming to Colorado’s restaurateurs

Sometimes the restaurant business looks like a demented video game. Zap! License fee increases. Pow! Frying oil taxed. Wham! Employee meal tax axed. Bam! Customers count pennies instead of calories.

Zap! The increase in licensing fees for Colorado restaurants went into effect July 1. Adrienne LeBailly, M.D., director of the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment, explained that the increase was necessary to maintain food safety.

“The current fees cover only 30 percent of our food safety program for commercial food establishments, “she said. “County taxpayers covered 70 percent. The new fees balance the cost at about 50 percent each.”

SPONSORED CONTENT

Business Cares: May 2024

As Mental Health Awareness Month unfolds in Colorado, it serves as a reminder of the collective responsibility to prioritize mental well-being.

Jane Viste, health and environment public information officer, added that it has become increasingly expensive to run the food safety programs, and even with the fee increase, the number of inspectors will not increase.

“We have eight environmental health specialists who must inspect all the restaurants, grocery stores, camps, schools and nursing homes in the county,” Viste said. “As of Dec. 31, there were 1,467 establishments on the inspection list. There is a lot of need and not a lot of money to go around.”

The yearly tax is based on restaurant seating capacity: 1 to 100 costs $255; 101 to 200  bumps it up to $285; and 201 and above, $310. Grocery stores are taxed on square footage.

The increase does not seem onerous, and ramping up food safety programs makes sense. In June,  E. coli bacteria were found in Nestle cookie dough, which caused five confirmed cases of illness in Colorado, and in recent months there have been highly publicized national cases of tainted spinach, peanuts and hot peppers.

Pow! So far the frying oil tax has not slipped northward from Denver where the city tax folks have determined that the oil used to cook, say, French fries is not an ingredient because it in not absorbed into the product. (Tell that to Mr. Cholesterol!) Understandably, food distributor Sysco has disputed a $90,000 assessment on shortening. Stay tuned.

Wham! Score one for the waitstaff. Senate Bill 121, co-sponsored by Rep. Don Marostica of Loveland, sensibly beat back the state Department of Revenue’s attempt to collect sales tax on reduced-price or free employee “shift meals.”

Bam! Those who can still afford to eat out are redefining “value” not so much as “value for the money,” but as “price.” Period.  A move from Chili’s to Chipotle is an example of the trend, according to the National Restaurant Association.

The exception to the general tradedown appears in the bakery/café segment. Although it owns only 1 percent of the market, it is growing. Panera Bread, founded in 1981, has more than 1,300 stores nationwide and leads the growth.

“We have ongoing expansion plans for Colorado,´ said Craig Flom, regional operating partner of Colorado Panera Bread bakery-cafes. “For the last nine years, we have been opening up at a steady rate. We do three or four at a time, then take a break to make sure we are achieving the community feel. Once we are sure that the new store on Harmony is steady, we will take a look at Greeley. Northern Colorado gives us an opportunity to develop some different sized stores.”

‰

Another Ka-pow! from the weather

When hail hammered Happy Heart Farm in Fort Collins just as the season was prepared to launch, Grant Family Farms pitched in to help supply the Community Supported Agriculture program with early greens. Every Tuesday through June, volunteers harvested radishes, lettuce, rhubarb and herbs from Grant’s fields to fill Happy Heart members’ boxes. Although CSA members everywhere understand they share the risk with the farmer, it’s nice when the organic community steps up to keep spinach on the table.

‰

In memoriam: a personal note

Norman Brinker died last month at age 78. If the name is not familiar, try these: Chili’s, Bennigan’s, Steak & Ale.

I was in Dallas in the 1960s when Brinker changed the way people eat.  In the day, local restaurant options were a little thin. In the affordable category good Tex-Mex and excellent BBQ topped the charts, Kirby’s Steakhouse opened in 1954 as the first white tablecloth restaurant in its category, and everybody’s parents celebrated their anniversaries at the Old Warsaw, dining on exotic fare like frog legs and sweetbreads (yep, veal calf pancreas) while serenaded by strolling violin players. No bell in that curve.

When Brinker, who was born poor in Denver and started his restaurant career as a bus boy in a San Diego Jack-in-the-Box, opened his first Steak & Ale in 1966 with a $15,000 investment, Dallas diners took note. An eight-ounce filet (for the ladies) cost $1.95, and a 16-ounce, man-sized strip steak $4.95. And a salad bar? You get out of your seat and serve yourself?

In a single brilliant stroke, Brinker launched both middle-class dining and the practice of balancing prodigious amounts of vegetation and croutons – topped by your choice of dressing – on a plate designed to hold much, much less.

Today, spots like Chili’s, Maggiano’s Little Italy and On the Border seem commonplace, possibly a little dated. They may be the tail end of a trend that began when a young man with more brains than money correctly identified an unmet need and filled it with entrepreneurial zest. That combination of observation and energy changed the way Americans dined in the 20th century. We can only hope that someone with equal imagination is cooking up the next best idea for the 21st.

Rest well, Norman, and thank you.

Jane Albritton is a contributing writer for the Northern Colorado Business Report. Her monthly column features restaurant and hospitality industry news. She can be contacted at jane@tigerworks.com.