Juan Lora, owner of Refucilo Winery, poses for a portrait outside his storefront on May 29, 2025, in Allegheny West.(Photo by Caleb Kaufman/PublicSource)
Whether Trump’s tariffs take hold or not, the trade crackdown is driving up anxiety, dampening spending and compounding pressures in the local hospitality industry.
“PublicSource is an independent nonprofit newsroom serving the Pittsburgh region. Sign up for our free newsletters.”
“This is a big learning curve,” said Dr. Juan Antonio Lora of Refucilo Winery in Allegheny West. “The only problem is, we don’t know what we’re learning just yet.”
The hospitality sector has already been navigating a mix of challenges, including rising ingredient prices, volatile supply chains, staffing challenges and a public that’s increasingly cautious about spending.
“We’re in an interesting time in the economy right now,” said Chad Moutray, senior vice president for research and knowledge, and chief economist at the National Restaurant Association. “We’ve had a lot of activity in the early months of this year in terms of policy changes and uncertainty. That’s certainly taken a toll on consumer confidence and business confidence.”
Christie Kliewer, co-owner of Nine O’Clock Wines in Lawrenceville, said Trump’s tariffs will favor larger chains that can wait out the initial shockwaves.
“Small businesses like ours won’t survive,” Kliewer said. “We’ll lose the character and diversity in the market, and we’ll be left with chains and huge groups.”
The tangled web
In early April, President Donald Trump announced a 10% universal tariff on all imported goods, dubbed the “Liberation Day” tariffs, to counter what the administration called unfair trade practices. The U.S. Court of International Trade blocked the tariffs in late May, but a federal appeals court temporarily stayed that decision, allowing them to remain in place pending appeal.
Trump also threatened a 200% tariff on European wine and spirits in response to the EU’s planned 50% tariff on U.S. whiskey. A broader 50% tariff on all EU goods, announced in late May, was delayed from June 1 to at least July 9 to allow for trade talks.
Moutray said the impact of these tariffs could take months to unfold. “Tomorrow, it could be another number,” he said. “ There’s a very real possibility that some of those might be extended.”
For small wine importers and restaurateurs, these changing policies have meant revising contracts, recalculating landed costs and sometimes rethinking their entire supply chains and pricing strategies.
Kliewer remembers the initial shock. “We were anticipating tariffs would be increased,” she said. “So we weren’t surprised when we heard that tariffs would be applied or proposed, but it was really shocking to see the initial number: 200% for European wines.”
It’s the lack of clarity, though, Kliewer said, that fuels both panic and hesitation among importers, restaurants and customers.
Kliewer has watched customers’ wallets tighten over the five years she’s been in business. “We’ve seen spending power steadily decrease,” she said. “People have less expendable money.” And she worries about the impact on small winemakers abroad: “Those small winemakers in Europe can produce inexpensive wine because they’ve been doing it for generations. But those wines are all going to become more expensive for Americans.”
Across town, at Refucilo, Lora faces challenges that begin thousands of miles away. “Everything that goes into making wine can be affected by tariffs,” he said. “The vines are the same, the grapes are the same, but fertilizers, oak barrels, labels, even the shipping costs can jump because of tariffs.”
Refucilo is unique among Pittsburgh’s wine scene as one of 25 partners in Argentina’s Casa de Uco cooperative, allowing Lora to import his own brand to his boutique tasting room in the North Side. “We share the vineyard, but each brand is unique,” he said. This setup offers some production control, but shipping and trade policies remain beyond their grasp.
His wines arrive from Mendoza to Pittsburgh via container ships, which could see 10% price spikes following the tariffs, Lora said. Add in warehouse rent, storefront rent, employee salaries and state taxes, “and margins are already tight.”
Seemingly unrelated tariffs could reverberate through his business. “If the U.S. puts a 20% tariff on barrels imported from France, France will raise the price for everyone, even barrels they’re sending to Argentina,” Lora explained. “So even if I’m not importing them into the U.S. directly, I still pay more.”
The looming July 9 tariff deadline has set Lora “racing to get the consignment out before then.” The logistics are anything but simple: bottling, labeling, coordinating the shipment over the Andes to Chile, then through the Panama Canal and finally to Pittsburgh. “And since it’s winter in Argentina right now, the roads around the Andes mountains can close from snow. If that happens, we’re stuck,” he added.
Whether or not they actually materialize, Moutray, of the National Restaurant Association, said, the tariffs still affect business owners. “Small businesses have to be proactive because they operate on thin margins,” he said. “Tariffs stack on top of already rising wages and food costs — each one a multiplier.”
Though many of the reciprocal tariff threats have been put on hold while the administration negotiates, Moutray said the psychological impact can be immediate. “Consumers see headlines and pull back on spending,” Moutray said. “And that cautiousness can accelerate a downturn.”
A squeeze from all sides
In the Deutschtown kitchen at EYV Restaurant [Eat Your Veggies], chef Mike Godlewski’s commitment to highlighting local vegetables feels less like a celebration of the seasons and more like a test of endurance. “We just want to be a good restaurant,” he said. “We want to make people happy.”
But in 2025, that happiness feels more elusive than ever. Earlier this year, when new tariffs were announced, business at EYV plummeted. “The two weeks after that were the slowest we’ve ever had — business-wise, cover-wise, sales-wise,” Godlewski recalled. “This was catastrophic.”
While May’s numbers were better than April’s, they were still down a couple thousand dollars in sales compared to the same month last year, Godlewski said.
He points to the fragile nature of the supply chains that sustain his menu. “It’s a domino effect,” he said. “Even the smallest things, like parts from Ukraine or fertilizers from Europe can affect us.”
He believes perception, fueled by social media and headlines, plays a huge role in shaping consumer behavior. “Even if the data says one thing, people hear that prices are going up and they react. Things can snowball pretty quickly. And restaurants are always the first thing people cut when times are tight.”
In April, the Consumer Confidence Index fell for the fifth consecutive month, hitting its lowest point since May 2020. The expectations component, which tracks short-term outlook for income, business and labor, plunged to its lowest level in nearly 14 years. In May, after Trump walked back many of the most stringent tariffs, confidence rebounded partially.
Still, Moutray cautions that restaurants — already operating on margins of just 3% to 5% before taxes — are especially vulnerable to economic shocks.
EYV’s wine list is about 90% imported, which means even small tariff increases can have an outsized impact. With the threat of a 50% tariff on European wines looming, Godlewski is already rethinking his offerings. “A $50 bottle of French pinot noir could jump to $75,” he explained. “That’s not sustainable. We’ll have to pivot to domestic wines, but even then — where’s the fertilizer for those vineyards coming from? Where’s the packaging from?”
“At this point, we just have to stay flexible.”
The perpetual pivot
For chef Josh Ross at Downtown’s Con Alma, flexibility isn’t just a creative choice; it’s a survival strategy.
In the heart of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District, Con Alma is a jazz bar, a culinary experiment and, for Ross and co-owner Aimee Marshall, a living testament to the grind of running a small, independent business. Ross said they’ve “basically stayed in pandemic mode.”
“Even on our one day off, we’re still on calls with suppliers and answering emails. It’s a constant hustle.”
Over the past five years, labor and food costs in restaurants have risen by 35%, and menu prices have responded with a 31% increase, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2025 analysis.
Restaurants, on average, have 16 days cash on hand, the least of any Main Street business, according to the National Restaurant Association.
Ross opened Con Alma in 2019 with a clear vision: a consistent slate of Latin American-Caribbean cuisine. But COVID forced flexibility. Now, they change menus quarterly, guided by season, budget and inspiration — from Indian dishes to Baja flavors. “Sometimes I revisit a cuisine I’ve done before,” Ross said. “Sometimes I put together a ‘greatest hits’” menu.
This adaptability is essential in a market where the prices of limes, say, can swing wildly from $42 a case to $75 within a week. Whenever he can, he pivots creatively. “If avocados jump to $80 a case, I’ll take guacamole off the menu,” he said, substituting with something like a Yucatán-style black bean dip instead.
Yet even flexibility has limits. “When tariffs hit specialty food imports, wine, kitchen equipment and suddenly, everything is upstream, those costs will have to trickle down,” Ross said. “And in Pittsburgh, people like familiar things. You can’t just jump 20% in price and expect people to follow you.”
Moutray said restaurants like Con Alma are trapped in a push-pull scenario. “Restaurants hesitate to raise prices too much because they worry about losing traffic. At the same time, they have to pass on some of those costs.”
The human cost
Beyond the spreadsheets of food costs and shipping tariffs, there’s a different kind of accounting that Pittsburgh’s restaurant owners tally: the human cost of staying afloat.
According to the National Restaurant Association, restaurants are notoriously labor-intensive, requiring about 12 employees to generate $1 million in sales, where clothing stores need only around four, and hardware stores only three.
Godlewski has watched his staff shrink as hiring struggles drag on. “We’re down to four days a week now, just to ease the burden a little.” The reduced schedule helps the team catch their breath, but it also means fewer opportunities to bring guests through the door.
Ross sees the glass as half-full. “The good thing is that you never get bored or stuck in a rut,” he said. “The restaurant business can feel like Groundhog Day sometimes, so I try to keep it fresh for the staff, myself and hopefully the guests.”
For Lora, the challenge is more than just getting his wines from Argentina to Pittsburgh. He’s expanding his revenue streams by hosting wine dinners, offering speaking engagements and participating in farmers markets. But every new opportunity comes with added costs — more staff, more fees, more uncertainty. “We have to pay the PLCB, Allegheny County and the market itself just to set up at the farmers market,” he said. “And we don’t know how much wine we’ll actually sell or how many people will come.”
Kliewer sees the same pressures on the other side of the bar. “It’s not just discretionary spending that’s down,” she said. “More people are having to take multiple jobs because of the rising expenses. That means they don’t have time to go to restaurants. They’re prioritizing what they need most like groceries, utilities and basic needs.”
Aakanksha Agarwal is a wine, travel, and lifestyle journalist. Originally from India and a former Bollywood stylist, she now writes from Pittsburgh, exploring the intersections of food, culture and community from a global perspective. She can be reached at aakanksha.agarwal1988@gmail.com.
This story was fact-checked by Ember Duke
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
About Post Author
