Pittsburgh restaurateurs starting to see light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel
When word came down earlier last week the Pennsylvania Senate had unanimously passed a bill to distribute COVID-19 relief money to the hospitality industry, Paul Krawiec was unaware of the news because of what he has been doing since the pandemic began: working his way through it.
“I don’t even pay attention. I wait for someone to come in and tell me what’s happening out there. I keep doing what I’m doing and just adjust on the fly,” the chef and owner of Cafe du Jour on the South Side said while cutting salmon and preparing a Mexican chocolate mousse for a menu special.
He has skimmed the main points of the bill, which is still
pending approval by the House and Gov. Tom Wolf. About $912 million — most of it federal relief — will be distributed to schools and the hospitality industry, but $145 million will come from reserve cash from a state workers’ compensation fund. That money would be available through counties in grants of up to $50,000 for owners of bars, restaurants and hotels.
Pennsylvania’s hospitality sector has been the hardest hit in the pandemic and still has yet to recover almost 1 in 3 jobs — or more than 170,000 — lost during the pandemic, as of December’s state employment report. Restaurants and bars are still under various state pandemic restrictions, including limiting them to at least 50% of capacity and restricting bar seating.
Eligible applicants for the $145 million in hospitality sector grants cannot be publicly traded businesses — a provision that might limit some larger chains. But the bill still casts a wide net, including businesses with as many as 500 employees at one location and up to $15 million in net worth.
Applicants must be able to show revenue losses of at least 25% during the pandemic, but priority will be given to those with more than 50% in revenue losses and those that have not already received government pandemic aid. The new aid would be distributed by the end of July.
“I’m eager for all of that stuff because it’s been a long, difficult road,” Mr. Krawiec said, but he added he’ll need to continue to tread water in the meantime.
The dining room at his establishment on East Carson Street between South 11th and 12th streets can only seat a half-dozen people or so under current restrictions. But with a rear outdoor courtyard at his disposal, he was able to capitalize on outdoor seating through most of last year.
“I spent a small fortune on heaters and got an extra two weeks of usage of the courtyard out of it,” he said.
Even since the state’s most recent dine-in restriction lapsed, he’s back to subsisting mainly on takeout business.
“Dine-in hasn’t picked up tremendously, but we do enough with the dine-in and takeout that it’s OK. We’re such a small place, and our regular customers are the older, City Theater crowd, and I think they are more hesitant to come in,” he said.
“I could not imagine being a new restaurant when all of this started. Luckily, I’ve had 20 years to build a nice clientele that’s been great through all of this.”
Looking ahead, he said he is buoyed by folks already making plans for events later this year.
“I do feel like I can see some life,” he said. “I’ve started to book some parties for this upcoming summer. People are under the assumption that things will be back to more normal standards in the summer based on the way they are calling for reservations. It’s a relief.”
His business neighbor down the street shares the same bit of cautious optimism.
“You have to think that or else you wouldn’t continue to do it,” John DeMauro said.
Mr. DeMauro owns two locations of the Urban Tap, on the South Side and in Shadyside, and he said the past few weeks have simply felt different than they did in the late fall.
“It’s been good,” he said. “People have been coming out. As cases go down, people come out — and more people get vaccinated, people come out. It’s all upward trends. We’re starting at ground level, but people are definitely less apprehensive than in November or December.”
Although vaccine rollouts in Pennsylvania and much of the country stumbled, new cases — although still high — have continued to decline locally and nationally over the past three weeks, suggesting a combination of mitigation and vaccination efforts is working. However, the emergence of more easily transmissible strains of the COVID-19 virus looms as a specter over any progress.
“We have to vaccinate people and [get to] a better place than we are now,” Mr. DeMauro said. “The vaccinations are going to go up, and I think we’re going to be having a much better conversation come springtime.”
He said regulations being made by the state or county health departments need to be implemented clearly and consistently.
“What everyone needs in this industry is they need to be able to do enough business to get through,” he said.
“All I want is clarity from the people in charge,” he added, saying he has not been opposed to restrictions but rather how they’ve been handled.
In Downtown, Jen Grippo is in the midst of an extended winter break for her and her staff at the Original Oyster House on Market Square. The venerable Pittsburgh icon has been closed for the month of January and will reopen on Feb. 16 — in time for Ash Wednesday and the start of the Lenten fish fry season.
The business celebrated its 150th anniversary last year and has been a survivor, having endured the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic; Prohibition; the Great Depression; a large fire in 1945; an even bigger one in 1952 that injured 25 firefighters; the demise of the local steel industry and the Pittsburgh diaspora; the Great Recession; and now, in its sesquicentennial, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given that bit of historical perspective, Ms. Grippo is not prone to panicking over the current situation, instead taking a pragmatic, long-view approach.
“This entire pandemic, I say to my staff, ‘Let’s hope for the best but prepare for the worst.’ That’s how I’ve viewed everything,” she said.
She said they collectively have gotten so accustomed to the deft pivots and gut checks of the past 11 months, and she credits her crew and customers for that.
Regarding possible relief from the state, she has a que sera, sera outlook: “If it happens, great. If it doesn’t, that’s OK, too.”