Above and below: a sample of the fare at Rick’s.
 

The price of fuel has everyone spinning. It affects everything, from the price of food to the cost of electricity. Affected most of all are small independent businesses.

The very nature of a small, independently owned and operated business means that in tough times, they are left to their own survival skills. There are no corporate marketing people, no collective buying or purchasing deals to help lower costs, and no deep pockets to carry them through until the economy rebounds, if ever.

Take fast and convenient food restaurants for instance. The Subways, Quiznos, Pizza Huts, Dominos, MacDonalds, et. al. These are the Goliaths of the food industry. They individually and collectively spend millions of dollars on sales and marketing their products. In addition to the marketing, they also have buying agreements in place allowing them to pay less for their raw food products.

As a counterpoint, take a small independent; Rick’s Cheese Steaks Pizza & Italian restaurant in California. Rick Toth has been in the restaurant business for 18 years, survived and rebuilt after Hurricane Isabel, then decided to open a smaller venue.

“We have a lot of people here that are from the Philadelphia and Warminster areas because of various base closures and we decided to provide them food they could not get down here,” said Toth.

When asked about having to compete with industry giants, Toth stated that there is no way to compete with their enormous marketing budgets and advertising. “We just provide better food at a reasonable price.”

He went on to say that it is hard to compete with the false advertising put on the air by national chains.

“If you go in and ask for the same Cheese Steak sub that you get here, you’d be paying for triple meat at Subway,” said Toth. He feels that because the price of everything is going up and with the lowering of price by Subway and others – advertising $5 12-inch subs will eventually backfire because the foot-long subs advertised have nothing on them. “They don’t look anything like what’s on television in the commercials.”

Toth said that the economy is increasingly more problematic. “When we closed after the hurricane, we

 
 Toth

rebuilt and the 10 or 14 people that worked for us were able to return to work. If we close because of the poor economy, those same 10 people will be out of work.”

Toth maintained that business is okay now, but that the economy has definitely hurt. “We see people that would come in 3 or 4 times a week that now come in maybe once. They are putting their money into their gas tanks and not into restaurants.”

The same can be said for a lot of small, independent proprietors, struggling to make ends meet with fewer customers. There are fears of layoffs and closings across the spectrum of the small business sector. Tha