The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
State restaurants face challenges with return to sit-down service
Wayne Kirsten, food and beverage manager at the Omni New Haven Hotel, doesn’t have the option of opening the hotel restaurant, John Davenport’s, to outdoor dining.
John Davenport’s is on the hotel’s top floor.
“We’re closely watching CDC and also watching Governor Lamont’s directives and taking cues from there,” Kirsten said. He said the restaurant would open “as quickly as we can as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
The state’s dining industry will face a radically altered landscape when table service starts up again May 20, as Gov. Ned Lamont has planned. Establishments will have to adhere to a long list of new regulations and contend with a skittish public and an uncertain financial outlook.
The rule allowing outdoor dining only, combined with anxiety about being exposed to the coronavirus among both restaurant workers and customers, may make it difficult for restaurants to turn a profit even when they are given the OK, owners said.
“For most freestanding restaurants, or even chain restaurants, that is a very good question because … there’s not a huge profit margin in restaurants,” Kirsten said. “We work hard for the small margins we do make.”
Restaurants across Connecticut shut down their dining rooms after a few hours’ notice on March 16. Reopening them will entail a much more lengthy and complicated undertaking.
Despite those challenges, many restaurateurs believe that they can adapt to the new era of social distancing.
“I think the restaurant business is for a while going to be different,” said Anshu Vidyarthi, co-owner and principal of the Le Penguin restaurants in Greenwich and Westport and Le Fat Poodle in Greenwich. “But I do believe that when things like this happen, it’s time for innovation. It’s like creating a new business model.”
New rules
At Gov. Ned Lamont’s news conference Friday, he and other state officials confirmed that restaurants could resume sit-down dining on May 20, part of a first phase of business reopenings in the state. On March 16, Lamont temporarily banned sit-down dining to help reduce the new coronavirus’ spread.
Eateries would start out with only outdoor dining and need to maintain six feet between tables. They would have to comply with many other social-distancing and hygiene guidelines, including a requirement of masks or face coverings for employees and patrons, except when customers are seated at their tables; chair and table cleanings before new parties are seated; use of disposable or wall-posted menus; the packaging or rolling of silverware; making hand sanitizer available at entrances and continuing to close off bars and common areas, such as dance floors and playgrounds.
“Hygiene is very important, giving consumers confidence that they can go back to the restaurants,” Lamont said. “That’s why I think starting outside is a way to get them more involved.”
The new guidelines elicited mixed reviews, with the Connecticut
Restaurant Association among the groups expressing disappointment. The CRA represents an industry that employs more than 160,000 in Connecticut, accounting for about 10 percent of the state’s workforce.
“The plans announced today would be a step toward re-opening, but unfortunately not nearly a big enough step to save hundreds of restaurants from going out of business in the weeks ahead,” CRA Executive Director Scott Dolch said in a statement.
“This plan would keep the inside of restaurants closed at the same time other industries are opening up, even those who also serve customers indoors. Our local restaurant industry knows that things cannot return to normal right away, but as malls and hair salons and others are allowed to gradually begin indoor service, as they should be, it’s illogical that restaurants would be constricted to outdoor-only service for so long.”
The association has issued the Connecticut Restaurant
Promise, which outlines the steps both restaurant employees and their customers must be willing to take to reopen. It mandates sanitizing all surfaces, place settings, menus and other items after every use. It also asks customers to stay home and use contactless delivery options if they are ill, have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 or are part of a vulnerable population.
Many restaurants are hoping that municipal officials will give them leeway to expand their outdoor seating.
Basta Trattoria on Chapel Street in downtown New Haven might be limited to serving only four customers outside at a time. Co-owner Nino Ribeiro advocates for changes such as a waiver of the city’s $42 weekly fee for restaurants to place tables in parking spaces.
Ribeiro also plans to begin takeout service on weekends with family-style dishes, starting Mothers Day. He found that buying food for individual meals resulted in too much waste, because he has no freezer.
“I’m taking orders since the beginning of the week so I think this weekend will be good,” he said. “We’ll mark our return.”
Dining establishments will also have to reckon with widespread reticence about dining out — at least for now. About seven in 10 respondents in the tri-state area said that they would be uncomfortable frequenting restaurants or bars, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
Reflecting that unease, Soraya Kaoroptham is undecided about whether to immediately offer outdoor dining service at the York St. Noodle House and Anaya Sushi and Ramen restaurants that she owns in New Haven. She also owns the Noodle Shack on Crown Street and the Noodle House in Orange, which do not have outdoor dining.
“Maybe some of our workers are still afraid to interact with people. We’re going to see what the employees say,”
Kaoroptham said. “We’re also not sure [about] the customers in general, whether they’re going to be comfortable dining outside.”
While she hasn’t decided, Kaoroptham said there’s a good chance she won’t begin table service once it’s allowed. “It’s not going to be sustainable for us,” she said.
In Bridgeport, many restaurateurs fret that reduced turnout would threaten the downtown dining scene’s nascent revival.
“It completely chills their models,” said Kelvin Ayala, owner of Moe’s Burger Joint on Main Street. “You’re not going to be doing the same volume. You have to contend with that.”
As a hedge against the uncertain outlook for sitdown service, many establishments hope to sustain the increased demand that they have seen in recent weeks for take-out and delivery options.
“We’ll continue to focus on take-out and delivery and hope we can continue to grow that,” said Thomas Kelly, founder and president of Mexicue, which has a restaurant in Stamford’s Harbor Point section and launched a delivery service in March. “We feel really good about the product we’re sending out (through deliveries). It’s just a fraction of sales, but it’s grown nicely.”
There are other concerns with the restrictions on restaurants. Stephen Fries, a food writer for the New Haven Register and a professor of hospitality management at Gateway Community College, said rain and cold weather make decisions about bringing in staff difficult. And it is uncertain how many people will venture out to public spaces.
According to surveys, “not till the end of the year will people feel comfortable going to any of these places,” Fries said. Fries, who leads tours of downtown restaurants, said he fears for the small independent owners.
“They really need to help these guys out. Otherwise, we’re going to have a city of closed storefronts,” he said.