By Ed Avis
Sabor a Mi Grill Tequila & Botanas in Rancho Cucamonga, California endured the initial COVID shutdown that started in mid-March by offering take-out and delivery. When the state allowed a partial reopening in mid-June, owner Liz Hart reopened her patio and some tables inside, and quickly saw business return, especially on the weekends. But in early July, with rising infection numbers, the state again prohibited inside dining.
“The government just shut us again, and that’s been hard,” says Hart, whose patio remains open. “We had more hope before, but now it’s like we start from zero again.”
The seesaw of closing, opening, and closing again is taking its toll on restaurants across the country. Many that were just starting to hear their cash registers ring again are now returning to delivery-only models and wondering how long they can survive. In fact, data from Yelp in mid-July revealed that 16,000 restaurants of all types had closed permanently.
“We are surviving,” Hart says. “But I don’t know what’s going on in the future.”
Threat Hangs Over Heads
Pepe Stepensky, a Mexican restaurant owner in the San Diego area, says customers were slowly returning to inside dining at his two Porkyland restaurants in the month they were open.
“Once they let us do the dining in, we put our tables and chairs back in at the distance they need to be, and started our marketing, ‘Now open for dine-in,’ and things like that,” Stepensky says. “Customers were coming back, but not ‘Wow!’ People are very wary.”
When the state re-closed dining rooms, Stepensky was more prepared to deal with the situation than the first time. His delivery and carry-out business has remained strong, and one of his Porkyland locations is in a shopping center with an open-air food court that remains open to customers.
“I hope we keep increasing sales,” Stepensky says. “But if there’s a second round of the pandemic as they predict for November and December and we have to close again it’s going to be really tough. It’s going to be a really close call.”
The threat of restaurants re-closing has even affected restaurants in areas that have not experienced the full seesaw situation. Chicago, for example, allowed restaurants to partially re-open dining rooms in June and has not closed them again. Nevertheless, with rising COVID numbers, some restaurant owners are worried.
“We are constantly trying to figure out, ‘Are we going to get shut back down?’” says Karla Garcia, co-owner of Tecalitlan Mexican Restaurant in Chicago. “We don’t want to get too much inventory. It is stressful because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Staff issues
A key concern for restaurants dealing with the seesaw situation is staffing. Some restaurants that furloughed employees during the worst of the COVID time and rehired them when dining rooms reopened had to let them go again when dining rooms re-closed.
“When they closed us again, I had to tell my people that I had to be fair with everybody and give everyone even hours,” Hart says. “Some of them applied for unemployment again, so I let them take that money and I give those hours to the others.”
Garcia, who required all of her staffers to be tested for COVID before they returned to work, does not want to face letting them go again.
“We can keep the restaurant going with just take-out, but what really hurts me is knowing that the bussers, the wait staff, the newer kitchen staff [would be out of work],” Garcia says. “It’s really stressful.”
Tips for Managing the Seesaw
There’s not much a restaurant owner can do to prevent the government from shutting things down again, but here are a few ways to lessen the pain:
1) Maintain your take-out and delivery service even after you’ve reopened the dining room. That way you’ll be ready if you need to shut down again, and you may enjoy extra revenue in the meantime. Jim Urdiales, owner of Mestizo Restaurant in Baton Rouge, expanded his take-out business when restaurants shut-down in March and has continued that even after the state allowed a partial reopening of dining rooms two months later. “We were shut down on March 16 and the next day we were full throttle to-go,” Urdiales says. “To-go now is still 40 percent of our sales, and with dining room at 50 percent capacity, we’re actually doing 100 percent of the sales we were doing before COVID.”
2) Manage your inventory carefully. You probably always are careful with inventory, but that’s more important than ever when the risk exists that you could be shut down any day. Consider adjusting your menu to focus on items that are good for take-out and delivery so you can still use the ingredients if your dining room is closed.
3) Keep your employees as safe as possible. In many areas, if a restaurant employee gets sick, the restaurant needs to shut down for a quarantine period, regardless of the overall situation. “We’re trying to be as proactive as possible, because the last thing we want is to have to shut down for two weeks because someone gets sick,” Garcia says.