Throughout the last couple of years the restaurant industry has suffered an immense loss of revenue and high costs due to unforeseeable circumstances that have affected the country. The NYT article  “That Dinner Tab Has Soared. Here Are All the Reasons.” describes the causes of inflation that has forced restaurants to scale down on their menus and workers. The prices of many ingredients that restaurants use in their popular dishes like beef and pork, scallops, cooking oil, and flour have skyrocketed leaving restaurants having to raise their prices almost double the original amount.The article states that Mr. Moffett “raised the price on the restaurant’s Korean beef with crispy rice to $16. In 2019, just before the pandemic, it cost about $12”. As a customer, this has made me feel conflicted and more unwilling to dine out. These circumstances have contributed to many restaurants closing down. The war between Russia and the Ukraine has caused shortages and impacted trade on key ingredients that the food industry relies on like wheat and sunflower oil, which has also led to increased prices. Another issue crippling the restaurant industry is climate change and droughts that has caused certain harvests of grains, veggies, fruits and wines to be interrupted and unpredictable, causing these products to be unavailable to serve in their dishes. I feel it is crucial that the United States becomes self-sufficient and relies on its own resources and not depend on others so we can learn to survive on our own.