Abbott OKS more Texas reopenings
For many restaurant owners, change in capacity means little
Except for a few weeks, John Russ’ restaurant Clementine has been closed to dine-in customers since early in the coronavirus outbreak, serving only food to go.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement Thursday loosening some coronavirus restrictions, including allowing restaurants to increase from 50 percent capacity to 75 percent starting Monday, won’t change that.
“It’s become largely irrelevant to listen to what the government mandates are,” Russ said.
For Russ and many owners like him, the percentages don’t mean much. A change from 50 percent to 75 percent doesn’t necessarily mean they will be able to serve that many more customers. The limited floor space they have already is gobbled up by keeping tables 6 feet apart, as required by social distancing protocols.
Johnny Hernandez, whose San Antonio restaurants include La Gloria and Burgerteca, said the new 75 percent rule “doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“We can probably add a table or two, but not much, because we’re still doing our best to maintain social distancing,” Hernandez said. “I really don’t think it’s going to impact our business a whole lot until there’s some
more consumer confidence.”
The state has kept restaurant and bar owners on their toes since those businesses were closed in March to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Under Abbott’s orders for reopening the state, restaurants initially were permitted to operate at 25 percent in May. Owners saw those numbers rise as high as 75 percent before getting scaled back to 50 percent in June when COVID-19 cases spiked in Texas. Bars were permitted to open at 25 percent in late May but were forced to close again in June.
At least one San Antonio restaurant owner found an upside in the latest ruling.
Eugene Sanchez of the Magpie, a new Korean restaurant on the East Side, said the change will allow him to reconfigure his tiny dining room to go from six or seven customers to as many as 13.
“We’ve been going along, staying safe and doing what we can,” Sanchez said. “But this makes all the difference.”
Others have quit worrying about percentages and chosen to focus on big-picture health questions instead.
At the Tex-mex cafe Angel’s Mexican Haven on the East Side, tables were full in the socially distanced dining room at lunch Thursday. Owner Alma Martinez said that while she welcomes a return to 75 percent capacity, she likely never will go back to 100 percent.
“I realized how close together the tables were,” she said. “With all this, we can’t go back to that. We have to think about staying safe.”
Louis Barrios, whose family owns Los Barrios Mexican Restaurant and other properties across San Antonio, thinks Abbott’s announcement may make diners feel more comfortable about going out for dinner.
“On a functional level, it tells the consumer things are getting safer,” he said. “Emotionally, for the consumer, they’re thinking, ‘Oh, I can go out to eat now.’ It’s a psychological change that hopefood fully will lead to a bottom-line change.”
But on a day-to-day basis, Barrios said, the latest change won’t have much effect. For him, extra tables means extra staff, and that’s been in just as short supply as customers. With most of his workforce being college aged, many of those students have returned to class, and that looks different in the coronavirus era, too.
“Virtual learning is more demanding on them, not just their professors and teachers,” Barrios said, adding that employees who may have worked 20 or 30 hours a week before have scaled back to 10.
“We have to really manage our costs and labor costs very tightly. We can’t afford to pay overtime to the employees we’ve kept. We’re still a high-cost, low-grossing business, and that hasn’t gotten any easier.”
The Texas Restaurant Association weighed in on Abbott’s move Thursday, praising the governor for following the latest medical data. But the organization knows small incremental steps won’t help owners bring home the bacon indefinitely.
“We’ve crossed the six-month mark of this crisis, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the next few weeks will make the difference between tens of thousands of businesses surviving the economic fallout or being forced to close their doors forever,” the association said in a press release.
The release singled out some small changes that will help with the bottom line. Restaurants will be allowed to place reusable condiment containers and menus on tables as long as they are sanitized between each use. Owners previously were restricted to disposable menus, which came with a printing cost.
Bars, however, remain completely in the lurch. They have to remain closed.
Rebecca Roberts, owner of Schooners Sports Bar on the Northeast Side, can seat more than 100 patrons under normal circumstances. And Roberts knows her regulars.
“I was hoping for better news (from Abbott),” she said. “Even if we were able to open at 25 percent, our regular customers would give us enough business to sustain the bar.
“I didn’t open a restaurant. I opened a bar. But we are at the point where it’s now or never; most of us bar owners can’t continue under these conditions. That being said, I’m not going to open up illegally and break the rules, because the ones that are breaking the rules will make it that much harder for the rest of us to get back open.”