Changes galore for city’s restaurants
Partitions, masks on the menu
Major changes are on the menu for New York City restaurants as customers emerge from coronavirus quarantine.
Stratis Morfogen, the owner of Brooklyn Chop House, envisions a radically different dining experience from the moment people walk in the door of the lower Manhattan steakhouse.
Customers, who must wear masks, will pass through metal detectors converted into body temperature scanners. Tables will be separated by partitions. Servers will sport bucket caps with face shields down to the breastbone and give customers Clorox wipes when seated.
Diners will have the option of using disposable face masks with “duckbills” so that they can eat without removing the covering. At the end of the meal, customers will receive hot towels with disinfectant.
As restaurants reopen, competition will revolve around which one is the safest, Morfogen, 52, predicted. Aesthetics will fall far down the priority list.
“People are not going to say, ‘Hey, what are you in the mood for? Italian or a steak?’ I think people are going to say for the first six months, ‘Where do you feel safest?’” Morfogen said.
The restaurateur said staff may also wear shoe covers similar to gear used in hospitals. Every three days, the restaurant will get sprayed with a disinfectant mist. He expected to use test strips to gauge the concentration of disinfectant on surfaces.
“The business owner should be thinking through every detail about keeping customers safe, keeping anxiety low, and allowing them to have an enjoyable meal, rather than feel like they’re in prison,” he said.
Renovations and changes to operations are just some of the daunting challenges facing city restaurant owners, many of whom were operating on razor-thin margins before the pandemic. Restaurants that are open during the COVID-19 crisis are relying on a skeleton crew for delivery service. Some have also transitioned to selling provisions.
“Many of them were struggling before this crisis hit, but COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on them,” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson (DManhattan) said last week during an online news conference organized by the NYC Hospitality Alliance. “Our restaurants are part of our identity as New Yorkers.”
Across the country, 5.5 million jobs at food and drinking establishments were lost in April. Restaurants have lost nearly three times more jobs than any other industry, according to the National Restaurant Association. A survey of 483 restaurants by the NYC Hospitality Alliance found that a whopping 420 were unable to pay full rent for May.
The City Council passed three bills last week meant to help the ailing industry. The bills would put a 20% cap on fees by third-party delivery services like Grubhub, temporarily eliminate sidewalk cafe fees so that businesses can maintain social distancing, and set liability protections from commercial landlords for small business owners.
“I don’t see how the City of New York economy fully recovers if our restaurants and nightlife industry isn’t at the core of that recovery,” NYC Hospitality Alliance Director Andrew Rigie said.
The group is pressing Congress for l money that could be put toward nonpayroll expenses, such as renovations, that are necessary to reopen.
Plans for how restaurants and bars will reopen are still being hammered out, Mayor de Blasio said during a briefing.