High prices squeeze Virginia's 1st District: a cafe power bill over $1,000 and a single mother's $100-a-month plan

At Java Jacks cafe in the riverside town of Tappahannock, Virginia, owner Jeans Owens says coffee prices have gone sky high, up over 30 percent since 2022. The cost of beef is up, so is the cost of sausage and paper products for takeout orders.

Owens says there was a time when they were paying 12 cents for to-go boxes; now it is nearly 30 cents. A cup, lid and straw together used to cost maybe 3 cents; she says it is now more than 20 cents.

The cafe's electricity bill has also recently jumped. 'Normally, I'm paying $450, $500 a month,' she says. 'I'm paying over $1000 now.'

Java Jacks started in 2006 in what was once a one-story home on the main road through town. Owens and her husband took over about eight years ago, wanting to be their own bosses and set themselves up better for retirement. Their first years included the pandemic and inflation, expensive bumps for small business owners.

Owens says the cafe has a loyal customer base and she has kept some meals at $10 to keep menu prices affordable. She now goes to Walmart early in the morning for milk and juice rather than buying from a supplier, goes to a local grocery store for fresh fruit, and checks prices between three suppliers, switching to whichever is lowest.

Her customers' habits have changed too: more senior citizens are sharing orders, from one or two split tickets when they bought the cafe to multiple tickets a day now. Tips for staff got smaller when gas prices shot up and began to change again when prices came back down, she says.

Her biggest stressor now is finding and keeping staff, also rooted in affordability. She has another coffee spot across the river in Warsaw and has been short-staffed at both for months at a time. Rents have risen in this rural area, where the median income is around $50,000 a year. She has helped employees find places to live and put them up temporarily in a motel, and about five employees carpool to work.

All of this means Owens has had to take shifts in the kitchen, putting front-of-house duties and paperwork off to evenings and days off, and she says other local restaurant owners are doing the same.

Tappahannock is in the eastern part of Virginia's 1st Congressional District, where the race between long-time Republican incumbent Rob Wittman and Democrat Shannon Taylor, the commonwealth's attorney for Henrico County, has been tight. Owens will not discuss midterm politics, though what she has learned about the lack of housing and transportation has prompted her to run for the non-partisan town council. Whoever wins, she wants them to understand what small businesses are dealing with. 'We're struggling,' she says.

Jameka Campbell, who works across the river in Richmond County, thinks politicians are out of touch with today's economic reality. She is raising two children and working two jobs at Menokin, a historical site: office manager there, and community and outreach director with the nonprofit Just Harvest Va.

Campbell says she has mastered coupon deals at Walgreens, favouring a store in Callao a few miles from Menokin. 'My goal is always to only come in here once a month and spend $100' for household supplies, she says. She uses the app to clip, save and track, watches sales and stocks up on good deals.

Her favourite laundry detergent costs $4.99 for a small 27.5-ounce jug and is usually 'buy one, get two free.' On a recent trip she bought two 12-pack rolls of toilet paper, facial tissues, Lysol, dish detergent, disinfectant wipes, laundry detergent pods, two boxes of disposable bathroom cups, three laundry scent boosters, toothpaste, a toothbrush and mouthwash. She spent $60.04 and saved $27.71, enough, she says, for a meal or 'a quarter tank of gas.'

Campbell says she is keeping her eyes on the midterm candidates and doing her research, and will decide closer to election day. 'I'm not rich. I'm not poor. I'm in between. And you know, it could go either way,' she says.