Data and interviews with restaurateurs point to a deterioration in finances due to surging costs for everything from salmon to uniforms and labor shortages. A survey found that 51% of small restaurants in the country couldn’t pay their rent in September, up from 40% in July.

Unlike during most of 2020, today’s struggles aren’t visible with the naked eye: Customers are still flocking to eateries, for the most part, in spite of rising prices and lingering fears of the delta coronavirus variant. But the anxiety over mounting expenses is palpable among restaurant owners from New York City to Nashville, Tennessee.

“You might see a restaurant that’s doing well on a Friday night, but that doesn’t at all tell the story of how they’re doing. Probably not good,” said Daisuke Utagawa, a Washington, D.C., chef whose restaurants include Haikan and Daikaya. “For us, personally, we haven’t seen any sort of recovery. We are still underwater.”