The single biggest pandemic-era opportunity for restaurateurs has been the ability to serve diners outdoors, said Danny Meyer, founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, during the Crain’s Business Forum: NYC’s Restaurant Revival panel, Wednesday.
“I believe it will be something that will and should last permanently,” he said. “To bring these businesses to the vibrant streets of New York at time when underlying real estate costs have risen so enormously, having that spot to serve in addition to a restaurateur’s dining room should be one of the legacies to help the industry sustain itself.”
Single operator Melba Wilson, founder and owner of Melba’s Restaurant in Harlem, hadn’t had sidewalk seating during her 18 years in business but was quickly approved to do so once NYC began granting outdoor dining permits last June.
Though she didn’t have the funds for such a setup, she said she was able to bring 82 seats outside her iconic comfort food restaurant with help from DineOut NYC which in coordination with the NYC Hospitality Alliance, designed pro-bono, an adaptable and modular outdoor dining system that allowed her to operate under health guidelines while also ensuring the comfort of diners.
“There is an energy to the streets of New York City and to bring the indoors outdoors is definitely a plus,” she said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever catch up to where we were, but this has definitely been a big help.”
At a time when NYC restaurants have been given the green light to operate at full capacity on May 19, albeit with at least six feet between diners or plastic barriers in place, the industry is facing a labor shortage as many restaurant workers have left the city, panelists said.
Due to the financial strain of the pandemic, Thomas Keller, chef and proprietor, who’s best know for The French Laundry in Yountville, California and Per Se in NYC, permanently closed his year-old TAK Room restaurant in Hudson Yards and was forced to furlough hundreds of employees during the pandemic.
“We lost over 350 people on our team and that was the most devastating moment, to furlough that many but we’ve brought back 70 of them so we’re moving in the right direction.”
Keller reopened Per Se on Valentine’s Day at 25 percent occupancy to the delight of diners. Because it only has 60 seats, that almost brought it to full seating. On Friday and Saturday nights it’s almost back to its pre-COVID number of guests, according to Keller.
“We were pleasantly surprised on opening night because they were dressed to the nines and really embraced the opportunity to come back out to fine dining,” he said. “We see a bright light and are excited to be back working and bringing people back to restaurants and giving them those memories.”
Chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud who is staffing seafood restaurant Le Pavillon, which is slated to open later this month, said that opportunities in fine dining exist now where they didn’t pre-pandemic.
“A lot of young people are scared to come to New York and may think ‘I’ll never be up to the league,’ but if they see a little opportunity, it will be tremendous for young people to come here and take advantage of opportunities that were more competitive before.”
Meyer echoed the sentiment saying “The great thing about our industry is if you have a heart for hospitality and a good work ethic, we can start you. We need to find ways to invite people from New York City for who it may have felt daunting to come to a fine dining restaurant. This is an opportunity to create more diversity and accelerate opportunities.”
Wilson said that one of the silver linings of the pandemic has been the unity her staff has displayed.
“We’ve learned that it’s not front of house and back of house; it’s one house now. Since we had no indoor dining, we had some of our servers get in the kitchen and help package food. People in the industry love making people happy and we use food as a conduit. We may not be bringing in the normal tips that we had been, but we want to stick in there and that’s what we in this industry do.”
One way to solidify that unity, said Meyer, is to improve wages for all workers.
“Five years ago, we instated no tipping in our restaurants and we did it because it remains confusingly illegal for dining and kitchen staff to share tips,” he said. “We saw a dining room, where whenever menu prices would go up, the tipped employees could make more money and cooks and dishwashers would remain fairly stagnant. That’s not a good, sustainable thing for an industry at all. The 80/20 rule needs to go away. Tipping itself isn’t the problem. The inability to share tips is the problem and if we ask the government to look at this, we can get some big wins.”
Related: SFA Blog: Foodservice's Road to Recovery; OpenTable Helps Consumers Navigate Dining Out.