SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Inflation rates have finally begun to ease up a bit.
Since the pandemic, prices have increased everywhere, including businesses here in Lackawanna.
As prices went up, businesses had to adjust.
“Unfornatualy on our end, we had to raise our prices a little too, just to you know stay afloat with inflation,” said Jeff Keating the manager of Backyard Ale House.
Restaurants like Backyard Ale House in Downtown Scranton say they’ve been affected, but loyal customers keep them going.
“We have a lot of good customers, a lot of regulars that stuck with us throughout covid, and then throughout the prices that are going up, and hopefully soon going back down,” added Keating.
Other local businesses such as Nibble and Bits in Dunmore, try to find ways around the high prices for their customers.
“We locked in pricing with our vendors, our people that provide our ingredients for us, if the pricing was wildly higher than others we went in another direction,” continued Keating.
And using that strategy and staying transparent with their customers has kept their business flowing.
“We are trying to keep our prices as low as we can for our customers, we still want to be able to send gifts, and so far so good, people are still coming, they want to celebrate family and friends, they wanna celebrate themselves. so people are still out and about they might just be a little smarter with buying,” explained Maggie Calpin the owner of Nibble and Bits.
The consumer price index shows there was just a 2% increase in June, that’s the lowest it’s been since March 2021.
“But hopefully if that’s sustainable, then it says yes to a couple of things: one is we can sort of get back to a sense of normalcy, and also hopefully it’ll tell the fed that they can slow down raising interest rates,” said Bob Durkin.
Durkin also said if this inflation number is a sign of things to come, then what has been a negative trend, consumer-wise and buying-wise, will turn around shortly.
However, only time will tell until then.
