"Cost" Crisis? Or "Too Many Cooks" Crisis?

 We're just asking questions here because we don't have answers.

 

Some Milwaukee restaurant owners are fighting to keep their doors open as they face a perfect storm of challenges that have made 2025 one of the most difficult years in recent memory....

... The challenges extend beyond ingredient costs to shipping delays and changing consumer habits. The situation has become so dire that several Milwaukee establishments have been forced to ask for help publicly or close entirely....

Costs rise.  Ask anyone who pays an electric bill, or who buys foodstuffs.

But in a business there is the other side:  sales.  If you cannot get people to buy your stuff, "cost" is irrelevant:  you're going out of business.

It would be interesting to find out how many restaurant licenses were active in Milwaukee County in, say 1970, compared to today.  That would provide perspective.  Another question:  are these businesses providing 'stuff' to a vanishingly-small niche market?  If you can only count on 100 regular customers, instead of 1,000 or 5,000, you may have a problem.  

Finally:  a lot of restaurants and bars barely survived the Biden Chinese Red Death, and unless they were recapitalized, many staggered on for a few more years before folding their tent.  It's Bankruptcy 101:  first slowly, then all at once.  We are sympathetic, but stuff happens.

But The Narrative has been served, you know:  Trump is in office.  So its his fault.

Hmmmm.