Restaurant owners take a glance at new normal

Outdoor dining strong on first day of reopening

Wednesdays are normally the slowest day of the week for Mulberry Street Pizza in Manchester, but this one was different. Bob Sulick’s first customer of the day was a beloved regular, who hadn’t been able to dine there for more than two months.

Sulick said it was a “good day,” with his 22-seat patio full at both lunch and dinner times. “I wasn’t expecting to get hit head-on with anything,” he said. “But there were definitely people looking to get out and looking to find a place where they could sit.”

After a COVID-19-related shutdown stretching for about nine weeks, employees and diners alike donned masks and returned to restaurants Wednesday on the first day outdoor dining was allowed since mid-March, trying to adjust to a new kind of normal, as restaurant owners mostly reported cautious optimism after the first day back.

Sunny skies with comfortable weather helped the cause, as restaurant seating is now weather-dependent until the second phase of Connecticut’s reopening. Indoor dining could be about a month away, with a goal date of June 20.

Mulberry Street is one of the restaurants around the state that has benefited from relaxed or suspended zoning regulations, as cities and towns have rushed to help eateries add outdoor dining options. Sulick worked with the town of Manchester to add tables in three blocked-off parking spaces on Main Street, which will be open by the weekend.

Reopening after two months under the new guidelines has been expensive, Sulick said, as he’s had to invest in items like new tables and touchless hand sanitizer dispensers. But his takeout business was “very strong” throughout the shutdown, he said, between the Manchester restaurant and its second location in Glastonbury, Mulberry Too, which offers prepared to-go food and frozen Mulberry pizzas.

In Greater Hartford

Union Kitchen’s Zach Shuman said business at his West Hartford restaurant on LaSalle Road was steady all afternoon and evening, with the busiest hour coming between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. But he was surprised to see another wave of “late-night” guests come in and fill the patio at 7:30 p.m., he said, after about a 45-minute lull.

The restaurant also uses the patio seating at McLadden’s next door, which remains closed, with total seats for about 23 guests. Shuman said the restaurant did about 48 covers, “absolutely” more than they were anticipating, even taking prior reservations into account.

Diners are allowed 90-minute seatings. Union Kitchen has a solid amount of bookings on Friday and Sunday of the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, but Shuman said Saturday looks quieter because of a high probability of rain.

Many guests had questions about when and how they should wear their masks at the tables, he said, but there were no issues. “I think people were just so excited to get out of the house.”

Union Kitchen’s sister restaurant, McLadden’s in Simsbury, was quieter Wednesday, Shuman said. Management initially considered putting more seating in the restaurant’s parking lot, but they’ve decided to stick with the available seats on its patio.

Things were tougher for Rooster Company in Newington, said co-owner KC Ward, who worked with the town to expand the Main Street restaurant’s patio into the back parking lot behind it,

offering 64 seats in total. Ward estimates he sat about 10 tables all day.

He isn’t sure if it was because the state’s reopening date fell on a Wednesday, or if prospective guests weren’t aware that outdoor dining would be available on that date. Either way, the slower-than-expected first day has compounded the stress he’s felt since the beginning of the shutdown.

“I’m hopeful that things pick up this weekend,” he said. “We’re certainly weather dependent at this point. I’m just hoping to get out of the red and into the black.”

“These are all uncharted waters. I could run models and projections and forecasts, but they’re useless. They’re completely useless. Until I see what actually happens, in the rearview mirror, I don’t know if I’m going to make this work.”

At Max Fish in Glastonbury, managing partner Brian Costa said the outdoor dining was off to an “excellent” start, though it’s a

far cry from the 350 to 400 covers he’s used to handling on busy nights. But he’s been able to bring back about three-quarters of his staff, though some aren’t entirely comfortable returning and have opted to wait a few weeks.

Max Fish’s patio accommodates 18 tables with proper spacing. Costa said he’s working out an opportunity to also use the patio at the former Max Amore restaurant next door, which closed in June 2019 and remains vacant. That would allow about eight more tables and a potential additional 32 seats.

“It’s a slowly rebuilding process,” he said, laughing. “It’ll be great as long as the weather is perfect.”

By the shore

Restaurants on the shoreline are also beginning to open outdoor dining for the season. Shanks at Harborside in Clinton marked its opening day Thursday, with special “seniors only” early lunch and dinner hours for guests 65 and older. Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough in Noank, which opened for takeout only on May 1, opened its outdoor dining Thursday. Its

sibling restaurant, Costello’s Clam Shack, will kick off its season Friday at 11 a.m.

In New London, Captain Scott’s Lobster Dock reopened its pavilion Wednesday, with 50% capacity at spaced-out picnic tables. The popular seafood spot has been running curbside pickup takeout orders since early April, and plans to continue that service.

“Yesterday was good. Everybody, I think, was just happy to be outside and enjoy the great weather,” said co-owner Susan Tierney. “It was pretty much in line with what we expected.”

Captain Scott’s has asked customers to wear masks while waiting in line. Most customers arrived wearing masks, but not all, though Tierney said guests were compliant with social distancing guidelines.

Tierney expects the holiday weekend to be busy, as nice weekends have already been hectic in New London over the past months.

“We’ve covered all our bases,” she said. “We have charts everywhere of what has to be cleaned, constantly. Our employees are aware of what’s going on. Even the employees are happy to be back to work; it’s

been good.”

New beginnings

The return of outdoor dining aligned neatly for Pure Foods, a new Bristol healthy cafe and smoothie bar by JR and Leanne Rusgrove, which opened Monday. The Rusgroves, who also own Parkside Cafe and Main Street Pint & Plate in town, have kept their other restaurants closed while they focused on debuting the new concept.

During the first day open for takeout, Pure Foods served smoothies, salads, wraps and bowls to 381 customers, wiping out three days’ worth of food prep, according to a Facebook post. On Wednesday, diners were able to eat outdoors in the sun, with patio seating and a few umbrella-shaded tables in parking spaces in front of the restaurant on North Main Street, protected by large concrete planters.

“It’s been incredible,” JR Rusgrove said of the initial response. “We thought this was something Bristol would be excited to have … we underestimated. Every single day we’ve run out of food.”