Restaurants: ‘Let us serve’
Indoor dining prohibited yet again
Restaurants across New Mexico are wondering how to stay in business after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham shut down indoor seating once again.
As the number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rise, the state responded July 9 with rolling back openings for certain businesses. Restaurants and breweries are once again limited to takeout and outdoor seating. Patio seating will remain at half capacity with no more than six customers seated at a table.
The restaurant industry has been one of the hardest hit due to the loss of indoor dining, which many restaurant owners hoped would help them recoup losses after months of takeout-only service.
“It’s like a roller coaster,” said El Taoseño co-owner Fred Archuleta. “You just can’t run a business this way.”
El Taoseño opened for indoor dining on June 1, as per the governor’s original order. Before that, owners said the restaurant was running on about 25 percent of its normal revenue from takeout orders alone.
The new restaurant rule cuts indoor dining completely and leaves patio seating at 50 percent capacity for customers. El Taoseño, and a number of other restaurants in Taos, are unable to provide patio seating at the moment but are trying to work through the shutdown.
“This has impacted a lot of families,” said co-owner Yolanda Muñoz. “A lot of our employees were let go.”
Archuleta and Muñoz said about two-thirds of their staff were either let go or had their hours cut after the initial shutdown in March.
Lujan Grisham gave her new order during a Thursday (July 9) press conference, at which she said that the restaurants were doing everything to keep their customers safe but recognized the virus can thrive in a closed in,
crowded environment.
Her decision has left businesses like El Taoseño scratching their heads.
Those businesses in Taos with patio service said the new rule will be tough to adapt to but is something they can ride out – at least for a short while.
On the other side of town, in El Prado, Orlando’s has adapted to the situation by extending their existing patio into the south parking lot to provide additional tables for guests.
“When we were just doing to-go orders, a lot of people were just sitting in their cars or on the railroad ties, so we’re just giving them a more comfortable place to sit,” said owner Orlando Ortega.
But while the restaurant can serve food in the extended patio area, the state requires a restaurant to precisely define the area where beer and wine are served.
Ortega said he is glad to have his employees back making and serving food, but he said he needed to extend the patio to be able to make the business profitable.
“With the 50 percent seating on our existing patio, we can’t make it,” Ortega said. “It’s just not feasible.”
Outdoor tables must be placed 10 feet apart to maintain social distancing. With these restrictions, Orlando’s would have only been able to operate with around six tables if it had not extended into the parking lot.
“None of this is easy and we’re battling so many things,” said Donabe Asian Kitchen owner Marshall Thompson. “It’s crazy trying to be open right now.”
Donabe has been taking advantage of the large front and back patios attached to the restaurant and has been primarily serving guests there since June. Thompson said Donabe has only seated one indoor party per day since the time it was allowed by the state.
Restaurants with patios are raking in what dough they can while they can, but are also keeping an eye to the sky, watching out for summer monsoons.
Both Ortega and Thompson agreed that patio seating can only last as long as the warm weather holds out.
“We haven’t really hit the panic button,” Ortega said. “We still have two months of good weather, but after that, who knows?”
Thompson agreed that with summer monsoons and fall temperatures approaching, guests will be less inclined to sit on an open patio.
Staff at Taoseño said they are looking into more options like adding a possible patio and extending their serving capacity to include a drive-through.
Despite the issue of patios and indoor dining, many restaurants are also struggling to maintain inventory.
“I just bought $3,000 worth of food,” Thompson said. “Maybe give us some notice that you think a shutdown is on the way.”
Restaurants will buy their prep food in advance and must keep it in freezers or refrigerators until it is ready to be cooked.
Staff at El Taoseño said they also ordered over a week’s worth of food on Wednesday (July 8) and were given the order to shut indoor dining just three days later. This has left them with a surplus they are trying to sell before the food expires.
“What can we do to survive, actually?” Archuleta said, shaking his head. “Customers were just starting to come out.”
In an effort to get their message out, staff at El Taoseño participated in a statewide demonstration Monday (July 13), in which employees gathered outside the store with signs bearing messages opposing the state’s new order.
Signs read “Let us serve” and “We have families,” reminding passersby that El Taoseño has been a family business since the beginning.
Archuleta and Muños said staff worked hard to ensure a strict sanitation schedule at the restaurant and even had a system to determine which tables had been cleaned and which had not.
At Donabe, Thompson also said his customers were respectful of the masks and sanitation mandates.
To date, over 15,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed across the state. Despite the over 6,000 cases which have been designated as recovered, the state continues its efforts to stop the spread of the virus to more New Mexicans.
“These are not easy decisions and I do not take them lightly and they are not decisions that any governor wants to take,” Lujan Grisham said during the conference.
In the meantime, restaurants will hang on as long as they can.
The governor is expected to update her health order Thursday ( July 16).