MOORESVILLE —“We ain’t going nowhere!”
Those words were spoken emphatically by Jason Gray, a manager at Gray Brothers Cafeteria, in response to repeated rumors that the business was either selling or closing.
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“There is no fact to any of it,” said Gray, who manages the restaurant along with Andrew, Logan, Zach, Braden and Travis Gray. “The rumors have been going for a long time, but for about a year now it’s been constantly people asking. I have no idea where they get their information from, because none of it is true.”
Sources of rumors
Gray said some of the rumors could stem from the decision to close the carry-out line through the winter months. That decision was a cost-saving move during a time when business is traditionally slow.
“Over the wintertime when it’s cold and nasty out, we shut the carry-out down so we didn’t have to pay three or four people to stand there and literally do almost nothing,” Gray said. “Once it looked like we were getting people coming back in and they were getting out of the house, we opened it back up.
“No big deal there, but just little things trying to save a penny here and there because it’s not getting any cheaper.”
Jason Gray has worked at the cafeteria since he was 15 years old, he said. In that time, there have been numerous rumors about the cafeteria closing or being sold.
In 1998, a rumor was circulated that Laughner’s Cafeteria in Plainfield was planning to buy Gray Brothers. That rumor was squelched quickly with a story in the Mooresvile-Decatur Times.
“There is no truth to the rumors of Gray’s selling to Laughner’s,” Michael Gray said at the time. “Nor will it ever take place. We do much more business than all the Laughner’s Cafeterias combined. If anything, it would be the other way around.”
In 2003, an ill-fated attempt to open a restaurant with the same name in Bloomington caused a lot of confusion. Michael Gray and other family members decided to open the Bloomington Gray Brothers in June 2003. They spent $3.5 million renovating a location, according to a story in the Mooresville-Decatur Times from December 2003. That cafeteria closed its doors in November 2003. It was completely unaffiliated with the Mooresville Gray Brothers, however. Michael set up a separate corporation, which has since been dissolved, according to information on the Indiana Secretary of State’s website.
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Merrill and Kenneth Gray are listed as the principal owners of Gray Brothers in Mooresville, a business that is still active — and according to Jason Gray will continue that way.
“My grandpa (Forrest Gray) put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this place when he built it,” Jason Gray said. “He didn’t take a day off for seven years. He wanted to pay off loans and do it right.
“I’m blessed that I have a grandpa who worked his tail off and passed that down to me. Yes, it’s an old building, and the times have changed. But there’s never been any talk of selling. Not a word of it. I need my paycheck next week just like my brothers, and my dad does too.”
Doing things right
Another aspect of the food business could be fuel for closing rumors, Jason Gray said. The fact that they have had to increase prices periodically causes people to think there are problems. He said raising prices is just a function of increased costs from suppliers.
“Food costs have quadrupled in the last four years,” Gray said. ”Anybody who goes to the grocery store knows how much food prices have gone up. It doesn’t take someone running a business to know that. It all hurts when you have to raise prices. People will ask, ‘Why are you raising prices?’ and my answer is, ‘Have you been to the grocery store lately?’”
Continuing to keep up the quality his customers have come to expect is also a cost of business.
“I’m not serving Tyson chicken that you find in a bag in the grocery store,” Jason Gray said. “I’m serving good food. I’m buying the top-of-the-line food. It costs a lot of money, so you have to make changes.
“I buy the best I can possibly get. I go through a ton and half of chicken each week and I buy the best chicken I can get.
“We’re bringing it over, cutting it and getting it ready to go. The price of everything is up — beef, seafood — it’s all just crazy anymore, the end charge on that is. Then we’re paying someone to process it ourselves and paying someone to fry it — you have to raise prices from time to time. You have to stay ahead of the game without shooting yourself in the foot.”
Health care costs
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Health care costs are another source of the rumors Gray said he continues to face. A Mooresville resident posted on Facebook recently: “Sad day for Mooresville Grays closing at first of the year thanks to obummer care.”
Once again, not true, Jason Gray said. He is researching the costs of health care and the increases his business will face Jan. 1 when new health care laws go into full effect. Gray said he does have concerns, but he is facing those concerns the same way his family always has.
“We’re doing everything we can to save money and put money back to deal with it,” Gray said. “That’s all anybody can do with it right now.
“I like what the health care law is trying to do — we offered health care here for years — I carried it for years. It just got to where we couldn’t afford it any more. That was four or five years ago.
“It’s got anybody who owns an independent business with more than 50 employees scared. And they have every right to be scared, because you just don’t know what the end result is going to be.
“How many people of my 158 employees are going to want to pick it up? I think quite a few will just pay the penalty — taking out the $199 from their tax check or whatever it is — so it will be news to all of us once it hits to see what the end result will be.”
Other concerns
Jason Gray said the cost of gasoline and cutbacks at companies are also concerning.
“There’s a lot more restaurants out there. A lot more competition,” Gray said. “Then there’s gas prices pushing $4 and it’s harder to get people in here because of that. Someone might decide they don’t want to drive down from Avon, where they did 15 years ago, because they have to fill up to get here.
“I’ve tried to do things with the catering in recent years. We do quite a bit of catering right now in wedding season, but it’s not as much as it was three or four years ago. The weddings are smaller; the businesses that would have me used to have 300 or 400 people — now they have 100. You see it in all different ways.”
Gray said that no matter what happens, he loves what he does. That’s one reason they would never sell or close.
“A lot of what people like about this place is that it’s where grandma brought them to eat,” Gray said. “It’s where mom and dad brought them to when they were kids. And I like seeing the people come in that I’ve recognized for years and then seeing them bring their kids in here. That’s what you like to see and ultimately, that’s what I want to keep doing. I love having the different generations come in and say, ‘Hey, this where we ate when we were kids.’”
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