Restaurant owner says he’ll wait to reopen
No responsible restaurant should be asking for reopening to happen too fast. I will wait to open my restaurant both out of concern for the health of our community and for what would happen if, in a few months, another wave forces us to relive this. I am going to err on the side of caution and wait for the second round of openings in midMay.
Gov. Greg Abbott threw out a lot of information, and in order to comply, it will take a lot of careful planning. Missteps and mistakes by restaurants could have serious consequences. It has to be done correctly from the start.
My grandfather arrived in New York City in the 1920s, having fled Hungary a few years earlier. In just a few years, he had joined with his brothers-in-law to open the first Jewish deli on Broadway, the Rialto. Who could have foreseen that shortly after that, American history would be made? It was called the Crash of ’29 and the beginning of the Great Depression.
The deli survived that, and my grandfather, ever the optimist and ever the philosopher, took it day by day, year by year, and survived to become a very successful deli man.
As a third-generation deli man now, I do wish I could hear what my grandfather would think about these times we are in.
What the pandemic has done can only be compared to some kind of story out of a Ray Bradbury novel. Faced with orders to close all dining rooms and inside service, restaurateurs had to toss business plans, eliminate most services that defined their restaurants and transform lucrative locations into high-rent fast-food outlets.
This shutdown not only pulled the rug out from under us, it ripped out the floorboards and cracked the foundation.
All Houston restaurants have, of course, been forced to close at different times because of hurricanes, tropical storms, flooding and street repair projects. But what makes this the most frightening is summed up with what one business owner said about those instances — at least we could see the rain. With COVID-19, we are in the dark as to where we are going and when it will end.
At Kenny & Ziggy’s, as at many ethnic restaurants, we have been hugely fortunate that we are part of a loyal community. Our customers and the Jewish community at large have been very supportive of our curbside and delivery business alternative. Surprisingly but joyously, our total sales for Passover were among the largest we have ever had.
This said, however, we are not making money. We are surviving. It is all restaurants can do for now and for the unknown future.
No one knows where this is going, and no one — all those we depend on to give us direction — is providing clear, solid answers. Every day, we hear one thing from the local level, something else from the state and something altogether different from the national level, often all contradicting one another.
Still, few full-service restaurants are going to survive many more months of being restricted to selling food to-go and cutting off 75 percent of our in-house guests while paying rent, salaries, food costs, utilities and other expenses. It is time for the Texas Restaurant Association and the National Restaurant Association to formulate proposals and details on what to expect.
Are restaurants going to be asked to stay at 25 percent capacity? What kind of menus do we need to have, how do we pare our staffs or how many of those furloughed should be rehired and how will these new restrictions affect the rent and other expenses? Everyone certainly wants to reopen, but without more information from people who know both the pandemic situation and know the restaurant business, the process will be confusing, chaotic and possibly dangerous.
I would be very upset to bring people back to work if, God forbid, we have a second spike in coronavirus and have to close again and they have to reapply for unemployment. It wouldn’t be right. I have to think about our extended restaurant family.
Regardless of the details, the months ahead are still going to be tough. Many restaurants will need to review all their operational costs. Landlords will need to be open to negotiating new long- or short-term leases and similarly go to their lenders. Leases that were signed for a property with 100 seats cannot be sustained if seating is only for 25 or if other expenses mandated by the new coronavirus restrictions substantially raise operation costs. Pre-virus rental rates will invariably lead to post-virus empty storefronts if costs can’t be cut.
In the early days of Jewish delis in this country, they prospered because they became central to the communities they served. They were the gathering places for business, for socializing and for gossiping and debating. There are certainly more restaurants now, but in essence, they still play the same roles in their cities, neighborhoods and communities. The pandemic is hurting more than businesses here. It is strangling the places that represent how we still come together, break bread and live.
The fact is, we have all suffered. We are all still suffering. Yet with more information and direction, with more cooperation, we will see this nightmare end and be able to say we survived.