Mohamed Anam and his family are busy taking orders and preparing dishes inside their restaurant on Lodge Lane.
With a phone held to the ear, pen scrawling away in the other, Mohamed somehow finds a spare hand to gesture towards customers making their way up to the counter. Some come in to pick up an order, others simply pass through for a quick conversation.
Anam’s Kitchen, a restaurant specialising in Yemini cuisine, is a compact but lively operation with a handful of tables. The walls are draped with the distinctive Maswan colours of red, gold and black, while the aromas of the kitchen escape through a bead curtain at the back. Through it you can just about make out an array of pots and pans vying for space on the stove.
READ MORE: Fast food: the dishes that bring streets around the dinner table
With the Yemini community one of the largest in the local area, Mohamed takes pride in each dish he serves out to loyal customers. He sees it almost as a duty, but explains that it’s coming with growing pressure.
He told the ECHO how war in Yemen makes the import of certain ingredients for Yemini dishes more difficult. The Fahsa, he said, a type of lamb soup and one of the most popular served by the restaurant, is one that benefits from refined ingredients.
War in Ukraine has only added to the challenges, along with rising inflation. He explains how the cost of sunflower oil has more than doubled in price, but is essential to his recipes - therefore he cannot use a cheaper option.
Mohamed told the ECHO: “We used to spend £150 at the cash and carry, now we’re spending over £250.
“Meat used to be £6.50-7 a bag. Now it's £9. Customers are coming in and seeing the price and asking why are things £5 when they used to be £3.50?
“Everything has gone up. It's very hard for us.”
Food price alone is putting a significant burden on Mohamed and his family business, but energy prices make these increases pale in comparison. He explained how he’s been quoted a bill of £8,000 for three months usage - a challenging sum for such a small business.
He added: “It is very hard - for the rent, for the electricity and gas, everything now.
“I’m in shock about the future. If the prices stay like they are it is going to be hard. But if they go up it will be impossible.”
Mohamed explains how his family business cannot simply “leave” - citing the £60-70,000 that has been poured into it over the years. Had he been offered the chance to start his business today on the current going rates, he said there’s “no way” he’d be able to.
‘We’re already worrying’
Anam’s Kitchen is not alone in feeling the pinch of the cost of living crisis. Earlier this week, The Monro, a pub in Liverpool City Centre famed for its roast dinners, announced that it was having to make adjustments to ensure they can make it through the tough months ahead.
The pub will instead pivot from roasts to Greek food. It said it was doing so after its gas bill “doubled overnight” to £3,000 a month.
Residential households are expected to see energy bills climb to £4,200 in January this year, but restaurants and cafes across the city are already being asked to pay up similar sums in their monthly outgoings. Coupled with rising food prices, it’s forcing businesses to adapt to survive the cold weeks ahead.
Back on Lodge Lane, Al Agha Shawarma has been up and running for a year. Sitting hunched over a table in the restaurant and takeaway’s dining area, owner Mohamed Al Hanti, 40, explained how each day the business is proving more costly to run.
“It's not good,” he says, when asked about rising energy prices and its impact on the business. The roaring extractor fans, grills, fryers, blaring television and numerous fridges humming away only drive Mr Al Hanti’s point home.
Asked if this fear will get worse in the winter months, he responds: “Of course I worry. We're already worrying right now.”
Mr Al Hanti explains how he was going to order new machines for the restaurant but did not go ahead due to rising electricity prices. He added how the business is now switching some appliances off when not in regular use.
He continued: “Every time our electricity and gas goes up, we will be forced to increase prices as well - then we'll lose customers. That will have a massive impact.”
Mr Al Hanti told the ECHO how he’d been in communication with other business owners along the high street who had a similar sense of worry - some of which feared they may have to close.
‘It’s hard for everybody’
Across the road from Al Agha Shawarma, the shutters to Lodge Lane Gifts and Accessories are currently pulled down. Speaking to fellow business owners outside, its owner Abdul Ahmed explains how he’s had to close the shop recently due to the rising cost to keep it running.
While the store was not a restaurant or café, Mr Ahmed said rising rents and pressures on the high-street meant he could not operate any longer. He added that the prospect of rising energy bills would only have added to the struggle.
A few rows down in the container village is Fozia’s Kashmiri Street Food. The popular kitchen and catering businesses - famous for its samosas - has been based there for over a year, and is soon to be opening a restaurant in the Picton area.
The expansion isn’t however a sign that the business is immune to the growing financial pressures. Sitting in the square to the front of the kitchen’s servicing hatch, owner Fozia Choudhry told the ECHO how she’s budgeting to pay £3,000 a month on energy bills.
Speaking about her new site, she said: “It’s a scary time to be opening. Originally it was a really exciting time to be opening - when looking ahead in January.
“Then came April, May, and you're looking at the news hoping every day that we can still make it. It’s very worrying.
“I do enjoy a challenge. I'm always very positive. I think we can and will get through it, god willing.”
Similar to Mohamed Anam, Fozia explains how cooking oil is proving to be the largest expenditure. She said she’s currently spending £30 on oil every two days, when it used to be in the region of £5.
Cooking oil has become an expensive fuel in its own right. Fozia jokes that she may have to stock up on air fryers in a bid to cut costs.
She adds that meat and butter are also steadily going up in price. Fozia said that some suppliers have suggested bringing her portion sizes down in a bid to cut costs, but it’s not something she feels comfortable doing given she has a loyal customer base.
Fozia said: “People know our food and the amount that we give. If you start giving people a smaller portion they notice. They will say they don't want to pay those prices anymore.
"If you start reducing that down people are having to buy more. It's putting an unfair strain on everyone - it's hard for everybody.”
Over in the kitchen, when her colleague Sonia Ashraf is tending to the afternoon orders, it’s business as usual. Thinking of the months ahead, however, it’s anything but.
“Something has got to happen,” says Fozia, in relation to the need for Government intervention. When asked how it will feel when the first £3,000 energy bills land, she’s seemingly lost for words.
“Psychologically, we've got to be prepared for it,” she adds, “otherwise how are you going to deal with it when it happens?”
READ NEXT:
Liverpool Council confirm new interim chief executive
Further government intervention 'won't solve Liverpool's problems' - Mayor
Liverpool Council appoints interim neighbourhoods boss
