Restaurants in Butler County getting back to normal
Running a local restaurant has never been easy. Running a local restaurant during the last three-and-a-half years has been perhaps as difficult as it has ever been.
From the biggest chain restaurants to the most remote dive bars, no eating establishment in America was left unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly four years later, restaurants that survived the calamity face economic challenges, such as supply-chain issues, inflation and a labor shortage.
W. Rick’s Taproom and Grill is one local establishment that has not only survived, but thrived in the post-COVID era. The restaurant, located at 269 Meridian Road, in Butler, has just celebrated its 25th anniversary.
Owner and founder William Rick Reiber has been involved in the restaurant business for four decades. He previously was involved in two other restaurants before he left to form his own.
“It started getting a little more corporate than he liked. He just wanted to find a nice little family place,” said Tricia Christy, William’s daughter and operations manager at W. Rick’s.
Another restaurant that has weathered the recent economic storm is The Beacon Hotel, located at 231 Beacon Road, Renfrew.
According to The Beacon’s website, the establishment was founded in 1942 by Thomas Krelow and has remained a strictly family business ever since. Multiple generations of the Krelow family have helped to keep it aloft over the decades.
“We have a lot of staff that’s been with us, literally, for years,” said Deb Krelow, who currently operates the restaurant.
“We treat our employees like family because they are family,” she said.
One of those employees is 29-year-old Cheyenne Smith, a second-generation Beacon Hotel staffer. Smith, who serves as the kitchen manager, followed her mother into working for the restaurant. Smith’s father also assists the restaurant with its fall corn maze.
“She’s just moved up and up, and now she’s pretty much kitchen manager,” Krelow said. “She does all the ordering for me and takes a lot of pressure off of me, which is wonderful.”
Krelow credits The Beacon’s survival to its ability to adapt with the times. A key example was when it went through a major renovation in 1995, which added a large kitchen, evolving it from what she called a “shot and beer bar.”
“You have to be willing to change and update and listen to what your customers want,” Krelow said. “We have people from newborn to 90 that have been coming in here. We had a couple stop in who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.”
W. Rick’s has also had to make some changes to keep up with the times, including the addition of a deck for outdoor seating.
“We’ve changed our menu a few times,” Christy said. “We go over our menu items. If something’s not selling real well, we’re gonna try to find something else to replace it that piques more interest with people.”
Among the challenges faced by both restaurants, and countless others, is trying to keep their menu prices under control in an age where inflation is rampant. For the last few years, it has cost more for restaurants to obtain food and other supplies. Therefore, those costs will eventually be passed on to the consumer.
“I think everyone’s pretty much going through the same thing,” Krelow said. “The price points are crazy. Everything just keeps going up and up and up — and where does it end? So you try to still make money and still pay your staff and still offer your customers a decent price, but that’s getting more difficult.”
“We try to keep competitive prices, and we don’t really like to raise our prices,” Christy said. “But everybody had to after you’re paying twice as much for a case of chicken or a jug of fryer oil.”
For some restaurants, staffing is still a major concern, as the industry struggles through a labor shortage. At the start of this year, staffing in the restaurant industry is still 3.6% below pre-pandemic levels, according to the National Restaurant Association.
Today, W. Rick’s has a full staff of 24, and according to Christy, it was “a big challenge” to reach that point again. Shortly after the dining room was forced to close due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020, the remaining staff scrambled to find ways to stay afloat, including shifting over to curbside service.
“We had to totally rearrange and figure out how to do to-go orders when nobody was allowed in here,” Christy said. “We still stayed open and did curbside. That was a big-time learning experience, with all the regulations, all the rules I had to read.”
Today, in-person dining has returned to W. Rick’s, and the diners haven’t forgotten about it. Recently, a large group of students from Butler Senior High School swarmed the dining room to celebrate the school’s homecoming.
“We don’t really aim for (a demographic),” Christy said. “The bar’s a bit of a younger crowd. But there's also some older people who may be in their 60s that go hang out at the bar too. So I think we cover pretty much all bases.”
In times when finding any staff at all is hard for restaurants, finding the right staff is more valued than ever. Christy cites a core group of employees who have stuck around for years as key to the survival of W. Rick’s.
“I have so many people that have been here for eight, nine years. They stuck with us through the pandemic,” Christy said. “When we were short-staffed, everybody pitched in and worked overtime.”
Among those employees is kitchen manager David Seelbaugh, who has been with W. Rick’s for its entire existence.
“I depend on him greatly,” Christy said. “He keeps the kitchen running, does all the orders, takes care of the maintenance on the equipment. He’s quite a great handyman.”
