Restaurants across the United States are slowly and gradually reopening but face an existential risk: Many restaurants cannot survive below full capacity, meaning that the jobs of the roughly 6 million servers and bartenders laid off in the pandemic are still at stake.
“This is not a long term solution for restaurant brands,” Ray Blanchette, CEO of TGI Friday’s, told the Washington Examiner via email.
Restaurants operate on notoriously thin margins and can ill-afford allowing tables to go unused for an extended period of time before they deplete their resources and shut down permanently.
The phased-in reopenings taking place around the country are “incredibly challenging” for many restaurants, said Neil Bradley, the chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“They are predicated on filling all seats in an establishment. Now they’re filling 25% or 50% at best,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Blanchette said that between 10% and 50% of the tables at TGI Friday’s, located through several states and subject to varying degrees of pandemic restrictions, are available for dining.
Social distancing is a double-edged sword for restaurants. While it addresses the pandemic, allowing them to reopen and provide table service to customers, it also means they cannot operate at the capacity they need to survive. The quandary illustrates the larger threat to the U.S. as it tries to regain economic activity without seeing a resurgence of the virus.
For every dollar lost due to closing their dining rooms, only 35 cents have been regained after reopening, according to Jenna Billings, senior media relations specialist at PAN Communications, a PR agency headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, the restaurants that have reopened are facing the reality of the risk of infection for restaurant workers and diners, no matter how many feet separate tables.
“No activity is going to be risk-free,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, who focuses on emerging infectious diseases and pandemics.
Adalja thinks restaurants can’t afford to remain closed until a coronavirus vaccine is created, which could take at least two years, but infections could arise from these establishments reopening.
“We have to be honest and say that the cases are going to continue to occur,” he said.
“For those individuals who don’t want to go to restaurants or don’t feel safe going to a restaurant, they’re not being forced to go. So I think it’s important to remember that there are going to be people who continue to avoid restaurants until there is a vaccine,” he said.
Furthermore, patrons are not the only ones concerned about dining out. Some servers are also worried about returning to work.
“It’s too soon,” said Ned Atwater, owner of six restaurants in Maryland.
The state now allows restaurants within the state to serve patrons outside, but Atwater told the Washington Examiner that employees are worried about returning to work.
“All of us have mentioned at one point or another that it’s too soon,” he said. “By opening up the patio and eventually inside, we’re just increasing that risk, so we’re all concerned.”
His restaurants are open for curbside pickup or deliveries, and to make ends meet, he recently received a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government to help cover payroll and other expenses. The loan allowed him to rehire staff, but it will soon run dry and likely force another round of layoffs.
“Once it runs out, which is pretty shortly, we’re going to look at our model again and probably have to lay off staff that we laid off at the original shutdown,” he said, adding that whether or not his business can survive without providing table service is now a “week-by-week evaluation.”
Many states that have allowed restaurants to reopen have done so for outdoor dining only, which is in line with demand. Only 19% of people are “very comfortable” and would “go to a restaurant immediately” for dine-in service, according to a recent poll by Toast, a provider of point-of-sale software to the restaurant industry.
One concern about indoor dining is whether or not air conditioning spreads the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this year that airflow created by air conditioning could have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus at a restaurant in Guangzhou, China.
Dr. Adalja said that air conditioning was one of several possible reasons why the virus spread in that restaurant and will likely not be a common occurrence in the U.S.
“I don’t think this is what you can expect to see in every situation,” he said. “There are air conditioners in hospitals too. There are air conditioners in lots of places that are still open, and we haven’t heard about this type of spread that often.”
Still, restaurants are taking advantage of outdoor dining as the weather heats up.
Friday’s is testing how customers react to tables on sidewalks or even in parking lots, Blanchette said.
Others are getting creative in moving operations outdoors.
Mike Ricciardella owns three restaurants in Phoenicia, New York, about a two-hour drive from Manhattan. The state currently prohibits indoor dining, so Ricciardella is extending his dining room into the outdoors.
Ricciardella, whose nephew works for the Washington Examiner, hopes to serve between 70 and 80 tables when complying with social distancing rules. Normally, his restaurant holds 150 tables.
“As long as the weather permits, I can handle social distancing,” he said.
But if social distancing persists into the fall and the weather turns chilly, Ricciardella will only be able to serve 50 tables indoors, assuming the state permits such food service.
“We’re a four-season state, so probably around October, we can’t use the outside anymore,” he said. Surviving at that level, he said, would be a “close call.”
