What does it take to run a food business today? Industry professionals know that pure dedication doesn't cut it. 2025 has brought rising costs and shifting policies that make the current marketplace a bit shaky (which means, of course, a need for all the more love).

Alissa Leinonen, our founder and CEO here at Gourmondo, knows this better than most. In a recent Explore PNW feature, she gave a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like to be a food business owner in today’s post-pandemic, politically hectic landscape.

Gourmondo started in 1996 in a tiny space tucked behind Pike Place Market. What began as a humble lunch spot has grown into a high-end catering company that is well-known and loved in Seattle. But even successful businesses aren’t immune to our post-pandemic economic climate.

“Just out of COVID, you were pretty lucky if you could break even,” says Alissa. “And now, we're in an environment where even if you are optimizing all your expenses, you're looking at a negative seven to ten percent loss. It's just simple math.”

Seattle’s recent minimum wage increase to $20.76/hour added another layer of complexity, particularly for small and mid-sized businesses. Where before, small employers could count employees’ tips and/or medical benefits toward minimum compensation requirements, that’s no longer an option. It’s now a uniform rate across the board - $4.10 higher than the state minimum wage.

That can hit restaurants and bars hard. According to a 2025 survey by the Seattle Restaurant Alliance:

• 82% of restaurants plan to raise menu prices.

• 74% expect to reduce staff hours.

• 49% are considering cuts to staff benefits.

• And 30% are actively contemplating layoffs.

Rising labor costs are already affecting Gourmondo’s kitchen and at its many grab-and-go cafés. The ripple effects of the wage increase are showing up in everything from scheduling shifts to recalculating prices - all while trying to keep the guest experience, and team morale, intact.

Alissa feels like her and other’s concerns are not being taken seriously by local politicians.

“They said, ‘We’ve done our analysis. We fully expect 30% of your industry not to make it next year, and that’s a price we’re willing to pay,’” she recounted.
“Wow. It’s just gut-wrenching. We put our heart and soul into our businesses. We’re not driving around Porsches. We’re really just trying to do what we love and serve our community.”

For employees, the change is a double-sided coin. On the one hand, inflation and the cost of living continues to skyrocket, so any boost helps, and Alissa understands this fact.

“Of course we want our team to make a living wage,” she said. “They’re not just staff - they’re family. They are the magic of our business.”

But pay compression is a real issue. When a brand-new hire starts at the same rate as a seasoned line cook who’s been honing their skills for years, it can create friction.

“They want to feel like we're compensating them for the experience that they've been gaining and the work they've been doing,” she explained. “So it has a ripple effect, on a number of different stages and layers of labor.”

In an industry already stretched thin, that ripple can quickly turn into a wave.

Then there’s the word at the top of everyone’s minds - tariffs. Like salt in a wound, the economic uncertainty is forcing cash flow decisions and squeezing already razor-thin margins. Seattle-area businesses, including those at our own Pike Place Market, are experiencing increased costs due to new tariffs.

“We started negotiating to purchase larger inventories of the products that we knew were vulnerable, like olive oil from Italy,” Alissa said.
”We are in the business of nickels and dimes in food. So when the cost of Parmesan Reggiano goes up by 20 cents a pound, that's meaningful for us, because we might go through thousands of pounds of it every month. … This is beyond a headwind.”

In meetings with other hospitality CEOs, Alissa has had tough conversations about how to keep doors open amid this adversity.

“You have two choices  -  you increase prices or you wrap up,” she said. “You’re seeing people's appetites both literally and figuratively start to lessen, and as a result of that, we start to pull back our workforce because we don't need to produce as much when we're not selling as much.”

It’s a vicious cycle that tends to paint business owners as the bad guys, which Alissa insists is just not the case. To change this perception and the reality, she appeals to better, and more nuanced support from policy makers.

“As local small- and medium-sized businesses, we employ five times more employees than Amazon does locally, right?” she asked. “There's got to be a way to reset and create a more supportive and collaborative partnership with the city, because we love our communities.”

At the heart of Gourmondo’s philosophy is a culture of care. From day one, Alissa designed the business to be different - a place where employees could work hard, go home early, and build a life outside the kitchen. Today, 80% of the team wraps their day by early afternoon, in time to pick up their kids from school. That’s no accident. So when outside forces start pulling at those values, it’s personal.

Gourmondo is still here; still feeding Seattle with care. But like many local restaurants, we’re also fighting to make sure the industry survives - not just in name, but in spirit.

For Alissa, that means calling for more collaborative thinking from policymakers. It means imagining a future where supporting small businesses doesn’t come at the cost of people’s livelihoods - or their dreams.

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This story originally appeared in Explore PNW, one of our favorite reads and a trusted Gourmondo partner.

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