‘THERE’S NO REASON TO GO DOWNTOWN’
Church Street struggles without office workers, sports and shows
Not much is happening these days on Church Street in downtown Orlando, an entertainment district that once drew office workers and fans of pro sports, concerts and touring Broadway shows. The Ceviche Tapas Bar and Restaurant is gone, and so is Wahlburgers at Church and Orange Avenue, both victims of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Wednesday, mostly empty tables filled Hamburger Mary’s at lunchtime.
Only two groups dined inside and just one other party was seated outside shortly after noon.
“It becomes a ghost town down here because a lot of places around us have already closed permanently,” said Mike Rogier, who owns Hamburger Mary’s with John Paonessa.
Business at their restaurant, which opened in 2008, is only at about 30% to 35% of what it was a year ago, Rogier said.
‘No reason to go downtown’
Before the pandemic, Church Street would get customers from Orlando Magic games and concerts at the Amway Center or for Orlando City and Pride soccer games at nearby Exploria Stadium.
Church Street also is close to Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing
Arts, making it a place for theater-goers to have a meal before or after a show. And it got a lot of lunch business from downtown office workers, many of whom are working from home because of the pandemic.
“All that stuff went away,” Rogier said.
Next door to Hamburger Mary’s at Pepe’s Cantina, revenue is down 75%, co-owner Frank Chavez said. He also cited the loss of events and lunch business.
“Our two main sources of income are literally destroyed,” Chavez said. “There’s no reason to go downtown.”
It’s a different story at the
Winter Park location, where Chavez said business is about the same as a year ago. Church Street once drew tourists by the thousands before entertainment options were built by Disney World and Universal Orlando. There were hopes the new Amway Center would give the street a boost when it opened in 2010.
Now, Rogier expects downtown will be the last place that comes back during the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
“A lot of businesses have adjusted to having people work remotely and finding that there’s a cost savings involved with that,” Paonessa said. “People may not come back downtown to work downtown, they may work from home. So we’re prepared for that. You have to remain hopeful, and we’re hopeful things will start turning the corner and things will improve, but until we venture down that road we don’t know what to expect.”
While NBA and MLS games take place in closedoff bubbles at Disney World, a regular season for Orlando City remains a possibility. But details such as if fans could attend games at Exploria Stadium have not been announced.
“We definitely expect that there’s going to be a regular season,” said Orlando City vice president of soccer operations Luiz Muzzi. “We continue working for that.”
But what was left of the Dr. Phillips Center’s Broadway season was canceled.
Rogier said his restaurant pays a price to be so centrally located. Because of the pandemic, rent now eats up about 55% of the restaurant’s revenue, he said.
“You’re in a prime time business and entertainment district, and that district requires a higher than average rent,” he said.
Lost business also means lost jobs, as Hamburger Mary’s has seen its number of employees fall from more than 40 to 14, Rogier said. Pepe’s Church Street restaurant has gone from between 15 and 20 workers to about five, Chavez said.
Both restaurants have also had to close and reopen again after an employee at each tested positive for the virus.
‘We can’t lose our city’
Both Ceviche Tapas Bar and Restaurant and Wahlburgers announced they were permanently closing their downtown restaurants in June because of coronavirus. Wahlburgers has since also closed its Waterford Lakes restaurant, too.
“Sadly, the impact of
COVID-19 has forced us to make a difficult decision,” Ceviche posted on Facebook. “Ceviche will immediately cease operations permanently in Orlando.”
Sitting outside Hamburger Mary’s Wednesday, Carlos Castillo said Ceviche had been one of his favorite places.
“We are so sad to see that they’re no longer there,” the 43-year-old Kissimmee resident said. “We truly, sinPepe’s cerely hope that something will happen that will make them come back.”
Castillo said his father, a Louisiana resident, died because of coronavirus in early May.
“This is real,” he said. “It is very real for me.”
He was at Hamburger Mary’s with his husband, Antonio Lopez, 40, and their friend, Angela London, a 55-year-old Longwood resident.
“We know that we are in the middle of a health crises, but still we need to keep working,” Lopez said. “We’re following instructions, I have alcohol [sanitizer], but we have to keep going, because we can’t lose our city.”