On a busy stretch of Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis, a grocery and taqueria that barely survived one crisis is now staring down another. Bahman Razmpour, owner of Sabores de Mexico Market & Taqueria, says a new energy shock tied to the war in Iran threatens to wipe out the fragile recovery he has been fighting for since he opened in April 2025.
The shop never fully bounced back after the metro’s recent immigration enforcement sweep, which he says scared off customers and scrambled staffing. Now higher fuel and shipping fees linked to the conflict in Iran are landing on top of those losses, and Razmpour says the math is starting to look brutal.
Local shop already reeling
Razmpour told Star Tribune that sales plunged roughly 80% during Operation Metro Surge and that he lost about $250,000 in the run-up to this year. He said fuel surcharges and price hikes tied to U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran are now adding roughly 5% to 8% to his costs.
At one point, he said, the situation was so bleak that he told his accountant, “I am willing to sell the business for $1 as long as I can get some money for all the equipment assets we put in there,” describing how staff disruptions and customer fear forced him to lock the doors and shrink service. He has nudged a few menu items up by 50 cents, but says gradual price bumps are nowhere near enough to cover sustained surcharges.
Where the extra charges are coming from
Some of the pressure is coming from parcel and freight carriers that have added targeted lane fees and raised weekly fuel surcharge calculations since the conflict began. Industry reporting shows UPS and FedEx introduced Middle East surcharges and pushed domestic and air fuel surcharge percentages higher in March, according to Supply Chain Dive. UPS fuel surcharge tables also document significant recent jumps in its own calculations, as reflected in UPS published tables…