Argie Karafotias

“I’m a restaurant owner, and an immigrant. Serving food to my community is my American Dream come true.”

“Thanks to our customers and friends, our family business survived the pandemic.”

“We were doing great recovering until last November when this inflation started and since then everything has been up from 60% to 100%. I see it in my invoices every payment.”

“The food is the biggest issue. Everything is going up. Say I’m serving eggs – most of my menu includes eggs. Six months ago, eggs were around 33 cents. Then it jumped up to 76 cents, more than double the price. Right now, it’s down again to like 50 cents.”

“That is just for eggs. Imagine everything else.”

“I’ve already been forced to raise my prices once but I can’t keep doing it. Customers aren’t stupid. You can’t pass on all the costs to customers. We still have to compete with a Starbucks or McDonalds, who can keep prices lower.”

“You can only pass on as much cost as the customers will accept. I mean, they’ll just stop going out. They’ll go to the grocery store and buy the food there instead.”

“We are seeing more customers since the pandemic because we’ve continued to innovate and remodel the place. But the expenses are so high that there is no money left at the end of the month.”

“For now, we’ll save when we’re busy. We’ll sell more, we’ll work more but there is still no extra money because we have to pay double the price for everything.”

“My CPA also warned me about the upcoming unemployment tax hike. Hiking these taxes would make things even worse when business like mine can least afford it.”

“But we’re still getting crushed by high taxes.”

“Now, Illinois politicians want another property tax hike? How much more?”

“We just cannot afford another tax hike. That’s why I’m voting ‘no’ on Amendment 1.”

Argie Karafotias
Golden Brunch owner
Arlington Heights, Illinois