CLARKSDALE, Miss. — For two years, Naomi King, an Australian native who owns Levon’s Bar and Grill in Clarksdale, Mississippi, pivoted her business model in more ways than one. The coronavirus pandemic forced her and her husband, Jonathan King, to cut the staff by half, reduce hours of operation and eliminate some high-priced menu items while increasing the price for others.
“We shut down [for six weeks]. We did the curbside thing for a long time. And we still haven’t set the seats back at the bar,” Naomi said, sitting next to Jonathan at a table in Levon’s on a recent March morning. “We don’t have chicken wings anymore. We can’t afford to do it.”
“I mean the price increase for us was like 250%,” Jonathan said as he looked at Naomi. “We used to pay about $60 or $70 for a case. Last time I checked, it’s still over $175 a case for chicken wings. Nobody’s gonna pay that price for wings.”
