Menu of bad options: Eateries brace for restrictions’ impact

On a typical weekday afternoon, Cara Del Signore would work from home placing orders, doing payroll and following up on the myriad other managerial duties associated with running Stagioni, the South Side restaurant she owns with her husband, Stephen Felder.

On Thursday, however, she went to the restaurant to take care of a few specific things related to the state’s new suspension of indoor dining as a result of the spread of COVID-19: She had to look her employees in the eye to make sure they were OK; cancel any reservations on the books; and bake thumbprint cookies for their annual holiday “Feast of the Seven Fishes” dinner, which now will be a takeout-only affair Sunday.

“Baking always cheers me up. It’s coming in handy today,” she said.

Gov. Tom Wolf announced the new restrictions during a virtual news conference Thursday afternoon.

All in-person, indoor dining at businesses in the retail food services industry, including, but not limited to, bars, restaurants, breweries, wineries, distilleries, social clubs and private catered events, is prohibited. Outdoor dining, takeout food service and takeout alcohol sales are permitted and may continue.

Bars and restaurants are uniquely susceptible to spreading the disease. Numerous studies have shown the coronavirus is most easily transmitted when

people spend extended amounts of time in indoor settings with limited ventilation, especially if they are laughing or talking.

“It’s not the fault of the restaurant owner, or the bar owner, or their employees or their patrons,” the governor said. “It’s just the nature of the disease. It’s unfortunate. The vast majority of bar and restaurant owners have been responsible and highly conscientious throughout the pandemic. But this virus is insidious, and it’s spreading too quickly.”

At Stagioni, they had already changed the menu to be more to-go friendly, adding pizza and eliminating more expensive perishable items such as steak and seafood.

“We have kind of conditioned ourselves for disappointment,” Ms. Del Signore said. “We didn’t want to get that slap in the face again of, ‘Tomorrow, you gotta throw all your stuff out.’

“We’re small- business owners trying to figure out how to pay our mortgage and feed our families and our staff to do the same. I don’t know what happens to our employees. A lot of them have hit the mark on the unemployment they can claim. If I can’t give them work, I don’t know what they can do.

“We are not afraid to work to stay alive. There needs to be some relief, and there isn’t any that we see right now. We’re not getting a lot of love right now.”

On the same day Mr. Wolf announced the new restrictions, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy., announced he would not support a $908 billion bipartisan COVID-19 relief bill that would have included stimulus checks for people and aid for small businesses and state and local governments.

Mr. Wolf acknowledged the pain and suffering of those in the hospitality sector, saying, “I will look at anything working with the General Assembly we can do in the shorter term to help those restaurants,” but he offered nothing specific.

On the North Side, Cory Hughes wasn’t waiting for the announcement, either. Anticipating a fine kettle of fish on the menu, so to speak, the executive chef and co-owner of Fig & Ash and his business partner, Alex Feltovich, had made the decision earlier this week to go to takeout only, effective Thursday.

“We saw it coming,” Mr. Hughes said. “We think it’s more important to protect our staff and our guests than to risk exposure.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not heartbreaking. We had to lay off three sets of parents before the holidays. But we need to make sure this restaurant can survive so that post-COVID people have jobs to come back to. As a restaurant owner, it’s my responsibility to make sure we’re here — whatever it takes.”

To that end, Mr. Hughes and his team studied best practices nationwide and developed a playbook months ago to prepare for various scenarios.

“As a restaurant, you need to be able to pivot and make audibles on the fly, and this has been in our wheelhouse as something that could’ve happened,” he said.

Having opened in late September, in normal times, they’d be preparing for good problems, like being a hot new restaurant in the midst of their first busy holiday season.

Instead, like the woodburning oven they use, it’ll be a trial by fire.

“We’re getting acceptance of what happened, and we need to stay positive and upbeat that the neighborhood has our back. We feel awesome that North Side has our back.”

Mr. Hughes’ business neighbor down the block, chef Brian Hammond, owns Siempre Algo, which means “always something” in Spanish, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the organized chaos of running a restaurant.

He could not have imagined how prescient that name would be in 2020.

“I’m not nearly creative enough to have imagined all this,” he said. “This is beyond.”

He had done some limited dine-in this year and adjusted to various protocols and restrictions but had long since moved back to takeout only.

“The pivot costs so much — for equipment, for product — and we’ve gone back and forth so much in the country, the state, the county that my tendency now is to move very intentionally so we don’t have to change it every time because there’s just three of us now,” he said of his staff, which has been pared down from 15.

“We don’t have the resources financially or the bandwidth mentally or physically to reinvent it every time.”

He said it wasn’t necessarily the challenge of doing so; it’s the inconsistency and constant churning feeling of being in limbo.

“People are frustrated because we’re way overextended in every way, and we’re trying to do the right and responsible thing despite the pain, but when you feel that way and you don’t feel supported … the ambiguity of the messaging when the stress levels are this high is the problem with everything.”

Ms. Del Signore made it clear she understands the severity of the pandemic.

“I totally understand. I don’t want to get [COVID-19]. I don’t want my kids to get sick. I don’t want you to get sick. I don’t want anyone to get sick. I have two little kids, and it freaks me out. I want people to be safe and do the right thing, and if that means they have to stay home, fine.

“But,” she added, “order takeout.”