Boston restaurant industry faces tariffs, immigrant workers and outsiders

Business Journals

24-04-2025

Six Boston restaurateurs joined the Boston Business Journal to talk about everything facing the industry: tariffs, high operating costs, Boston's distinct diners and risks to the critical immigrant workforce.
Until recently, a restaurateur on a typical day might have to balance shipment schedules, employee shifts and maybe an exacting patron — and plenty else that goes beyond what's served on a menu.
The business has never been easy. But these days, the list of worries also includes tariffs, onerous costs and hurdles of operating in Boston, and protecting an immigrant workforce.
The Boston Business Journal brought together six prominent names in the local industry to talk about those topics and more at Saltie Girl on Newbury Street. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
On adjusting to tariffs
Kathy Sidell, Saltie Girl and Stephanie's on Newbury: Obviously, prices are going to go up. We source a lot from Canada, so that's going to be tricky and interesting. I think we're all going to be buying a lot more locally. And you can't just pass on these prices to the guests because there's a limit to what we can charge.
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Kathy Sidell of Stephanie's on Newbury and Saltie Girl at her newly remodeled Satie Girl restaurant.
Gary Higgins / Boston Business Journal
Demetri Tsolakis, Xenia Hospitality: I don't think any of us want to raise prices. My concepts are all Greek, so I import. I have all Greek wine. So it's scary for me. I don't know if I had a psychic ball or what happened but we had a lot of wine stored here locally, so I'm good through the rest of the year. Doing Greek and local is important to us. We don't have a tomato on our menu in January for that reason.
Allan Tidd, Blue Ribbon Restaurants: I think what we're going to see is prices elevated, even if it's justified or not, because that happened during Covid. People are charging what they think the market will bear. And I think prices are going to go up because they can, and not because their costs went up.
Don Donahue, Lenox Hotel: Forget just the cost of goods. We're going to have fewer guests coming here. That, in and to itself, is going to have a ripple effect.
Deirdre Auld, CODA Restaurant Group: One of the biggest challenges for us, beyond the costs and whether it gets passed on to customers, is that with the current administration, every other day is a different story. We're spending so much time as operators thinking about strategy or how we might pivot — that's wasted time in a lot of ways.
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Deirdre Auld is director of operations at The Coda Group.
Coutesy of Kevin Martin
Marc Sheehan, Northern Spy: There's a lot of disconnect between consumers and restaurants with why things cost what they cost. Beyond the tariffs, people don't get it. They just see what's on the news, and then they see what they walk into when they go out to dinner, and they make up their own mind about why the prices are what they are.
Immigration risks are worsening labor shortage
Auld: We're very upfront with our teams. We did really extensive ICE training with all of our management teams. We also did extensive training and overviews with our line level employees, because our team feeling safe at work has got to be the priority. We have an obligation to follow the law, and that's what we'll do, but we do not have obligations to do anything beyond that.
Tidd: When it's good — and I don't know when it was good last — it's your team that understands that you have their back and that you care. We've had staff afraid to take the subway.
Donahue: And drive now, too.
Auld: It's not just specific to folks that don't have documentation. Folks do have documentation, folks who are permanent residents lawfully, folks who have even become citizens, are dealing with the same fear, and that makes it that much more complicated for us.
Sidell: There's no one at this table who'd have a business if they go away.
Tsolakis: There'd be no hospitality.
High costs of operating in Boston
Sidell: I think it's getting increasingly more difficult to open in the city, and that's why you see people opening in other places.
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Demitri Tsolakis is founder of Xenia Hospitality.
Coutesy of Kevin Martin
Tsolakis: I went right over the line in Brookline. The process is much different. You get a free liquor license and you still get that Boston feel. So we can do great numbers over there. I think the problem here in Boston is that no department talks to each other.
Sheehan: When I opened Loyal Nine in 2015, it made sense to be in Cambridge. At the time, Cambridge was a place where if you were a young, independent operator, you could afford to open something that was a risk. For Northern Spy in Canton, we were actually approached by the town. They wanted to see if we wanted to come down and see where they were remaking the former Plymouth Rubber Co. site.
A lack of late-night, bar business
Tidd: There's just not enough late-night demand in Boston. We shortened our hours. There weren't enough people coming in to warrant carrying all that kitchen staff for those two extra hours.
Auld: Gen Z has straight-up said they're not going to stay up as late as previous generations. They have a different focus. It's just maybe not the next generation's scene. But that's where things like taking away happy hour kind of screws us over, right? Because we had the chance to potentially really double down on business during the times that people want to be out.
Sheehan: If you want to come out to the suburbs at 4 o'clock, I'll give you a cheap beer.
Tsolakis: I'd be against that. Knowing how much my rent is and how much my liquor license cost, to discount something that I rely on?
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Marc Sheehan is the chef at Northern Spy in Canton.
Coutesy of Kevin Martin
Sheehan: When I was 21, I worked at No. 9 Park. To get to work, I have to drive to a Red Line stop in Quincy to Park Street. I plated food until 12:30 to 1 in the morning, at which point I needed to already be partially changed so I could sprint out the door and try to catch the last train back to Quincy — and then drive home. How can you attract a line cook who's coming out of culinary school who thinks they want to come to the city to build their resume if they can't even get home late at night?
Waiting longer for an ROI
Auld: An ROI for us was two years, pre-covid. Now it's three.
Sidell: I think it's three to seven. I think most restaurants don't make money back until seven years.
Tidd: Say you put an investment group together to open a restaurant. What do they want? They're expecting to start making money on day one.
Sidell: It takes eight months to two years to know whether the restaurant is going to survive.
Shifting business
Tsolakis: We used to have a Monday-through-Friday, consistent lunch business. Then I lost Monday and Friday. But my catering is up because employers are trying to pull people back into the office and say 'hey, come to the office and we'll buy you food.'
Sheehan: We used to be open Tuesday through Sunday, for two services a day. Now, we serve only dinner on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The demographic for our lunch business has changed dramatically.
Tsolakis: Is lunch a dying breed? Do people go out for lunch?
Sidell: I see it on Boylston. Everyone there is going to Sweetgreen.
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Daniel Donahue is president of Saunders Hotel Group, which operates Sweeneys and The Irving.
Coutesy of Kevin Martin
Donahue: Or Chick-fil-A.
Expanding our palates
Sidell: We aren't terribly sophisticated.
Tidd: I'm from here. I worked in New York for about a year while we're in construction, seeing what they do down there. For us, each location is completely different.
Sidell: You came into a city where, how many people really know Blue Ribbon? I think this is the question: Ci Siamo is coming to Boston but do people know and care? Are people going to Contessa because they know it's related to Carbone?
Donahue: You said it. Outsiders do not do well in Boston, by and large.
Tsolakis: Jean-Georges Vongerichten came in. He couldn't make it work. Our celebrity chefs and outsiders haven't worked.
Sidell: You have a legacy with Blue Ribbon. I just don't know how much that applies to Bostonians.
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Allan Tidd is the general manager at Blue Ribbon Restaurants.
Coutesy of Kevin Martin
Tidd: I love being from here, but opening a New York-based restaurant in the old Eastern Standard space was almost like suicide.
Auld: We've seen over the years that food has moved towards Italian or steakhouses, for comfort and stability. Rents are so expensive that taking a risk doesn't work. But if you look at what's done really well in Boston in the last couple of years, it's Greek food or Korean. There is an evolution happening. It's just so much tension for new operators. I think we're gatekeeping the next generation in Boston, because it's so expensive to open a restaurant here that folks who have highly focused skillsets or new cuisine ideas or new concepts are really challenged to be able to actually do it.
Tsolakis: People thought I was crazy for having Greek wine. Like, where's my sauvignon blanc?
Sidell: I can't believe how gutsy you were. The entire menu's in Greek. I went there and I thought, are you kidding me?