These are lean times for America’s steakhouses. Prime cuts of beef have skyrocketed in price since May, with some meat sellers blaming a new trade deal with China — and that’s eating into the bottom line at high-dollar chophouses. Steak mongers are seeing red over price hikes of as much as 30 percent during the past month alone from meat distributors. They’re already feeling more pressure to absorb the costs as the steak season enters its annual summer slowdown. “We’re absorbing it right now,” said Bobby Van’s Steakhouse owner Rick Passarelli. “It’s hard to pass along.” Bobby Van’s, which charges $59 for a bone-in rib eye at its Central Park South location, has lately been buying its steak for about $13.50 a pound — up from $10 at the beginning of the year, Passarelli said. His restaurants buy about 50,000 pounds of beef a month. Accordingly, Passarelli lately has been encouraging waitstaff to push more pasta and chicken, which carry better margins despite the fact they’re lower-ticket dishes. Some business owners blamed a trade deal with China that the Trump administration announced last month, which immediately opened up US beef, poultry and natural gas to China’s exploding middle class. “China just agreed that the US will be allowed to sell beef, and other major products, into China once again,” Trump — who prefers his steak burned to a crisp and covered in ketchup — tweeted May 12. Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue said the deal would bring “access to an enormous market.” But steak purveyors gripe that it has had the unintended effect of slamming meat lovers here in the US. “American beef companies have been gearing up for this [trade deal with China] — they have been putting product aside and freezing it,” Pat LaFrieda Jr., owner of Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, told The Post. “There is much less available on the market.” Still, US Department of Agriculture economist William Hahn believes it may be too early for the China deal to have directly affected beef prices. Restaurant owners may feel the pinch more because prices had decreased last year, he said. LaFrieda, who says his restaurants are now paying about 20 percent more for beef, said he’s already seeing more demand for cheaper cuts, including hanger steaks, flat iron and chuck. “If a skirt steak was $5 a pound a couple of months ago, my customers are paying about $6 a pound now,” he said, quoting wholesale rates. “You will see less rib eye, filet mignon and NY strip on restaurant menus.” Nationally, the price of wholesale beef rose to $3.71 per pound for all types of beef in May — up more than 13 percent from $3.27 the month before, according to the most recent USDA figures. One high-end San Francisco restaurateur confirmed that he hadn’t been hit with the same price increases because he used smaller purveyors that already charged a premium. “The New York market gets hit the hardest,” Richard Femenella, chief financial officer of the Charlie Palmer Group, which operates 14 restaurants and bars in multiple states, told The Post.
US steakhouses have been hit by a surge in the price of prime cuts of beef, with prices rising as much as 30% in the past month, according to the Charlie Palmer Group. Some businesses have placed blame on a recent trade deal with China, which has opened up the country's booming meat market to imports of US beef. In response, some restaurants and meat sellers have been putting cuts of beef aside in anticipation of a shortage. "There is much less [beef] available on the market," claimed Pat LaFrieda Jr of supplier Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors.