Just outside Mueller Lake Park, northeast of downtown Austin, stands a bright green building outfitted with a neon goose, welcoming customers to L鈥橭ca d鈥橭ro. Earlier this year, Adam Orman strolled into his restaurant like he would on most days and got to work.
But as time went on, he noticed one key member of his staff hadn鈥檛 shown up to work.
"This had never happened before,鈥� Orman said. 鈥淲e just were waiting. We knew something was wrong.鈥�
Days passed. Finally, Orman reached out to the man鈥檚 family. That鈥檚 when Orman heard the news: his employee had been arrested and was in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The entire staff was shaken by the ordeal, despite the employee being detained outside of work, and his detention contributed to a climate of fear at L鈥橭ca d鈥橭ro. Orman says that fear could potentially cause repercussion for the entire restaurant industry amid harsher, Trump administration immigration policies.
鈥淎 lot of our team members know that it doesn't matter if they're here legally or not, but they still have targets on their backs,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o, they are not moving around as freely as they used to.鈥�
Those concerns for the industry 鈥� and his colleagues 鈥� come at the same time he and other restaurants are dealing with another significant economic pressure: The rising cost of goods ahead of President Trump鈥檚 looming tariffs. Orman buys most of his restaurant products locally, but he's still had to get creative to save money on the imported goods they need, like wine, chocolate and cheese.
鈥淭he idea that this is going to spur some sort of domestic production is false in our case," he said. "There are equivalents for Parmesan, but there's not Parmesan."
That combination of tariffs and tighter immigration enforcement has compounded the growing uncertainty in the restaurant industry 鈥� and others like construction, agriculture and health care.
鈥淓mployers have to look at raising prices for their goods and their services while they, at the same time, cannot find workers to do many of the jobs that we need,鈥� said Chris Wallace, president and CEO of the North Texas Commission, a public policy organization.
Like his immigration crackdown, Trump has tied his executive order imposing tariffs . The president and his supporters have also publicly said tariffs will persuade countries to establish better trade deals with the United States.
But experts say businesses in the United States rely too heavily on imported goods for this to be effective and predict.
Fears that tariffs would harm nationwide economic growth sent the stock market plummeting in April, and Trump put a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs in response. That freeze is expected to end in July.
Meanwhile, ICE raids and deportations in recent months have also contributed to fears of a labor shortage in Texas, according to Chelsea Kramer, Texas state organizer for the American Immigration Council.
鈥淔rom health care to energy to construction, it doesn't matter what it is,鈥� Kramer said. 鈥淚mmigrants are at every part of our economy.鈥�
Immigrants make up 25% of workers in the restaurant and food and service industry, according to research from FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy organization. Texas alone immigrants 鈥� or nearly a quarter of the state鈥檚 workforce.
When those people don鈥檛 show up to work for fear of being deported, Kramer says the result is higher prices for consumers.
鈥淧rices are going to eventually go up and we're going to be seeing that directly in our pocketbooks and in how we're accessing food, whether that's at a restaurant or at a grocery store,鈥� she said.
Adam Orman says with restaurants facing so much uncertainty, business owners have to adapt quickly in a constantly changing landscape.
鈥淲e're tired of small business owners having to come up with creative solutions for all of these big national and international economic crises,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e're the bottom of the supply chain and for us, we are the least well-equipped to be able to make changes.鈥�
