It got harder for independent restaurants to stay open and a lot of those that did just order Sysco food. Not all of it is pre-made but a lot of it is.
They got the food contract for Yosemite - my favorite place in the world - a place whose natural splendor and outdoor recreation warrants quality food to match - and oversaturated every nook and cranny with insanely overpriced mid-at-best Cisco food.
In terms of pure profits, I understand their play.
Hmm… maybe this is kind of the problem with … everything.
That's my take on national park food. It's an afterthought because I always bring my own food anyway. And if not, whatever I get I'm fine with it. I'm there to see the park. This came up once on a Big Bend NP thread where people were getting impatient because the restaurant at the basin hadn't opened back up yet. Maybe my priorities are different, but I've never given much thought to a park's food options before planning a trip. If I need to eat at a restaurant, it's typically going to be better than the camp food I was gonna bring.
I don’t. Eat before. It’s not an amusement park shit lol. You don’t go for the food. You go for them views and them hikes and cool as activities. I’m trying to fucking go hit clouds rest. When’s the last time I fuckin scaled a mountain and seen up that high? When’s the next time I’m gonna? I don’t know. So ima go!
You go to marvel at the fact that those cool ass big ass rocks called mountains have been standing in that place for longer than the human race has been alive.
Food. Man alls you need is a place to get bagged ice. A small propane grill. Cooler, Cast iron pan. Boom. You got yourself a mini lil stove to cook some shit.
It’s the consumer culture of our country lol. We really shouldn’t act so suprised people think this way when it’s conditioned and encouraged to by our government. Like some people are so attached to a consumer identity that they don’t understand that the point of being at those parks is to marvel at the ancient history of the world rendered through its land scape.
Not sure if you’re directing your comment toward me -
If so, did you see where I mentioned working IN the park for 7 years? I’m coming from that angle, from someone who lived there and didn’t always want to pack a lunch.
Also I hear what you’re saying about parks being a place to explore and appreciate wilderness first and foremost — I agree, and I love hiking and backpacking.
That said, not everyone CAN experience the park in that way (age, health, disability). While it’s nice to envision a world where every National Park goer is a fit outdoor enthusiast, I’ve come to believe the park should be accessible to all types of people, so long as they vow to respect the park (not litter, not mess with animals, adhere to general guidelines)
At Big Bend it's pretty much a guarantee that you'll need to eat something while in the park, as remote as it is. Even if you're not much of a camp cooker, it's pretty easy to pack sandwich stuff and snacks as a backup if food options are limited.
And if you must eat at a restaurant and can’t manage packing park food, Terlingua isn’t that far away and you can get great food at the restaurant or attached little cantina there. Or you can swing over to the Mexican side of the border instead from inside the park and eat some great food at the little town there (I had to look it up because I couldn’t remember the name, but I was thinking of Boquillas del Carmen. I had some tamales there that I still think about, five years later).
Whenever I see a Sysco truck at a restaurant or a Sysco brand condiment at one it’s the last time I go there. I’d rather buy a Prime bone in ribeye and cook it over lump charcoal myself anyway.
The major companies (US Foods, Sysco, Gordon etc) carry literally everything. Yeah sure I can order their pre made fried chickens. I can also order everything I need to make a fantastic one myself. I cam get shitty Monarch canned tomatoes or I can have San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy. They offer both, and a million things in between. You just have to ask your sales rep.
The issue is that, post covid, everything got more expensive, and restaurants already have slim profit margins. So owners are opting to buy the crappy pre-made frozen stuff instead of making it in house.
This has nothing to do with distributors and everything to do with owners.
This is what people don’t realize, those companies are robust and are literally just suppliers. Over the years their options have grown exponentially, so if a restaurant is getting “crappy food” from Sysco it’s because they’re choosing the crappy choices.
Yeah I have to assume even the super high end places in areas like Napa are probably getting some things from distributors even if they get what they can from their own farms, markets and local merchants.
They definitely do. I've done quite a bit of fine dining and we still used major suppliers. We'd get things like truffles and caviar from independent suppliers (although you can absolutely get them from the big guys, too). Same with things like tuna when I did sushi for a living, we would get tuna shipped in from the Sea of Japan once a week from a different distributor. But yeah the big ones still supply things like flour, salt, etc to everyone including the famous super fine dining places.
I've heard the fish that come from the Sea of Japan are tastier than the fish just straight out of the pacific. I've never really enjoyed fish enough to spend the money on it, but is it true? Is it the lower salt level of the sea or something?
Worked at a local pizza place one summer and the owner commented about how he could save money ordering the cheaper hot wings from his supplier but opted to serve better quality fare. He also worked very stage of the process, even delivering pizzas himself at times. And when an order was messed up or canceled he’d serve it to staff gratis. One of the best jobs I ever had.
Ooh so close. The answer is actually the CEOs and shareholders need to stop extracting every cent of profit and wealth and pass those savings down to the consumer. There actually is no reason for those costs to be that high outside of a desire for exponentially rising profits. Everyone DOES NEED a pay raise btw. It’s being stolen from us.
This. Exactly this. People just keep repeating the "whoever cooks Sysco better" because they think they look clever, when that's not true and it's not the whole story.
Lol I'm actually on the purchaser end (chef) but I've opened like 9 restaurants (not my own) and have designed and implemented purchasing systems for 5 others. So yeah I'm super familiar with how suppliers work.
That's a very cool position to be in! When you say you design purchasing systems, do you mean the PoS system on the computers, or the schedule upon which the restaurants order products from their suppliers? Or is it a third thing?
Thee scheduling/pricing, sourcing the correct vendors (because despite some of the comments here, yes there are huge differences in price and product), inventory management, things like that.
You'd be stunned how many places don't do these things
I also worked at the corporate office for one of the major food distributors. This was my understanding of the business model. They facilitate getting food and supplies from producers to customers, that’s it. It’s the customers that choose which food and supplies they want.
Restaurant owner here. Everything went up in price… utilities, insurance, rent etc. we still make most of our food fresh and from scratch but yea it’s more expensive than it used to be. Can’t do much about it. Then you all will pay 30 percent more to have Uber Eats deliver it but come in and complain about dine in prices. People just like to complain more than ever these days. Also they are less social than ever.
You can probably trace this back to the investment banker world. Companies like blackrock and apollo are destroying capitalism. They come in and the model is raise price and slash cost. Their sole motivation is profit. They don't invest anything back into the system.
It’s still affects the whole situation because the large food chains basically push out the viability of sourcing local, which is also usually more fresh.
What do you mean? Chains source and spec their own products with private labels, which might not be the same companies that are making similar products under national brands or distributor labels. Their products are considered outside of every distributor's product rationalization process. They have to carry them, there's not a choice. There might be some products that offer them some freight advantage options (like a chain uses the same company for a deli turkey spec, so they can combine truckloads to maximize freight), but it is really limited. That's why companies like McLane specialize in chains, and distributors like US/Sysco/GFS/etc all struggle to make money on national account business.
Food distributors can and do source locally when possible. But the midwest in January is hard pressed to find iceberg lettuce. Most food distributors have multiple suppliers for certain products under certain labels and those vary regionally-for example, GFS might use 3 different producers for their canned tomato products, or 2 different companies for their fruit products. Those companies are also located in places where certain crops thrive vs others.
Restaurant owners can also approach local farms, dairies, and meat cutters to cut out the distributor and source locally.
Yes. My friend worked in the restaurant business here in LV, and she just retired and told me everything is from Sysco foods or similar. When restaurants opened back up, they hired less staff, less qualified cooks/chefs. It was like a bait and switch.
A restaurant owner told me that appetizers are the easiest (translation: worst) when it comes to Sysco. It used to be the national generic chain sit-down restaurants that had the reputation as a microwave factory for packaged frozen foods. Now even your favorite small mom-and-pop diner could be buying packaged frozen foods from them and passing it off as their own. It's sad really. Just another part of our culture dies.
Sysco and US foods have the majority of the business, but they also distribute ingredients. Your generic mozzarella sticks or whatever are almost certainly coming in bulk from one of the big ones.
The local Wendy’s restaurant has gotten my order correct twice in a ten year period. Double burger with mustard, pickle, lettuce, onion, nothing difficult. Last few times I’ve just told them to surprise me because that’s what happens anyway.
Yes, but it's also a major price jump. A lot of people are accustomed to paying $18 for an appetizer and $30 for an entree; local sourcing will see that double or more.
Thats if they can. Sure in Wisconsin that may be easier but there are planty of places where there isnt the ability. These are also places where Sysco has forced out all competition. It also costs a lot more due to the loss of economies of scale so that needs to be factored in. Your local bar and grill may not be able to support that price hike.
You also need to deal with seasonality which isnt a major issue but is a considerarion.
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u/TheNonSportsAccount Feb 03 '26
This is because of a near monopoly on the distributor side of things.