Restaurant owners feeling impact of Sysco truck driver strike
NEWTON - It has now been five days since drivers went on strike at Sysco Foods, a major supplier based in Plympton. Many restaurants that rely on Sysco are now scrambling to stock up their freezers.
The owners at Baramor in Newton were just about out of food at the start of the week. "It was Boston College Parents' Weekend here so that means there's a lot more people in town, so we were just slammed," said Arpit Patel.
Patel expected a food delivery on Monday until he got the dreaded text message from his food distributor that more than 300 truck drivers walked off the job.
"That's not a good situation for any restaurant to hear after a busy weekend," Patel said.
They were out of the essentials with the exception of beer.
"We were out of a lot of proteins. We were out of steak, we were kind of running low on burgers and being a concept like us, we cannot be out of burgers obviously," Patel said.
Like many restaurant owners struggling to break even after the pandemic, Patel had to make the hour drive to Sysco in Plympton and load up his car with food just to keep his kitchen open.
He was met with frustrated truck drivers picketing, refusing to make deliveries until the company agrees to pay them a competitive wage.
"We're not asking for anything more than the other companies are getting," said Trevor Ashley, a truck driver who has been with Sysco for 24 years.
He says the job is a strenuous one that's often overlooked.
"The don't order two or three pieces," Ashley said. "They're ordering carts and pallets full of food that we have to manually bring upstairs, downstairs wherever it has to go. It's a lot of work, it takes a toll on the body. We should be paid better."
While Sysco continues negotiations with the truck driver's union, Patel says he plans to make the drive to Plympton to avoid losing business.