It feels like a terrifying and uncertain return to spring 2020 for New York City restaurant owner Gabriel Stulman.
The founder of multi-concept operator Happy Cooking Hospitality, Stulman had nine restaurants at the pandemic’s outset. He has since had to close five of them, and his four remaining restaurants are in the midst of full or partial closures after fully vaccinated workers have contracted COVID in recent days.
“We’re beat up. We’re bruised,” Stulman said. “It’s a rat’s nest of shit … We’re right back to April and May 2020.”
Virtually unheard of in the U.S. a month ago, the omicron strain accounted for 73% of all new COVID infections last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a nearly six-fold jump in omicron’s percentage of all cases in one week.
The strain’s virulence is causing some cities to see exploding infection rates. On Friday, New York recorded its highest single-day infection total since the early days of the pandemic. In Chicago Tuesday, COVID test positivity was 7.3%, according to the city’s department of public health. A week before, it was 4.1%. A growing number of cities are adopting new protocols to limit COVID's spread in restaurants and other indoor areas.
Independent restaurants around the country are temporarily shutting down—during what should be a lucrative holiday season—as workers contract omicron, the COVID strain health officials are calling “unprecedented” in its contagiousness.
“When you end up with five people that test positive over a three-day period, I’ve only got 10 people left.” - Gabriel Stulman, founder of Happy Cooking Hospitality
The emergence of the virulent strain comes when restaurants are already operating under severe labor shortages, with little room for even one worker to call in sick.
At one of Stulman’s restaurants, for example, he has 15 dining room workers. On Saturdays, seven are needed to staff breakfast and lunch, and another seven are required to run a dinner shift.
“When you end up with five people that test positive over a three-day period, I’ve only got 10 people left,” he said. “And that’s not enough staff.”
‘Paddling like hell’
Erika Polmar, executive director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) lobbying group, said she spent last weekend fielding heartbreaking calls from restaurant owners. They requested bankruptcy resources and advice on, once again, negotiating with the landlord. One asked how to explain to the kids that they’d need to move in with grandma and grandpa because they can no longer pay the mortgage on their home.
“The No. 1 concern was, ‘I have to keep my staff employed through Christmas. I can’t let them go right now. What do I do?’” Polmar said.
Since the outset of the pandemic, Polmar’s group has been pressing Congress for aid for independent restaurants. Congress eventually approved the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) but that pool of money ran out in about three weeks, leaving roughly two-thirds of eligible restaurants without funding, according to the IRC.
The IRC is currently pushing lawmakers to replenish the fund, and there are four bills in play (two in the House and two in the Senate) that would refill the RRF with up to $60 billion.
Independent restaurants right now are like ducks, she said. “Cool, calm and collected above the water but paddling like hell below.”
This latest COVID surge couldn’t have come at a worse time for independent restaurants that have been barely holding on the last two years. Polmar said she expects to see thousands of closures nationwide in the coming weeks and months.
“The holiday season is really important to making numbers,” she said. “This is when you see holiday parties, catering orders. Those are all gone, and January is always quiet and a time when revenue is slim.”
Reservations platform OpenTable is showing a significant drop in seated dining reservations for the last week, as omicron surged, with reservations down as much as 33% on Monday, according to its ongoing State of the Industry data.
Private parties at restaurants are being canceled in many areas.
“We had a lot of inquiries but there’s still a lot of uncertainty about how people should gather, especially for office parties,” said Nora Bankert, regional sales and event manager for Richard Sandoval Hospitality’s four Washington, D.C. restaurants. “There are fewer bookings, gatherings are more intimate and people are coming out, but not in the same numbers as before.”
DLena, one of the newer restaurants in Sandoval’s portfolio has private party rooms, but a smaller group can’t meet the food and beverage minimum. As a workaround, Bankert has booked smaller groups in the main dining room and held less expensive cocktail parties in dLena Roja, the sub-level lounge.
“I want to give people more bang for their buck than they would get in a private room. Fifteen guests can’t reach the food and beverage minimum that we require, so we offer them preselected dinner menus,” said Bankert. “These range from $65 to $100 per person.”
At the more casual El Centro, a cantina and tequila bar, a group can book a sit-down dinner for $50 to $60 a person, excluding drinks, she said.
While vaccines encouraged more dine-in customers to patronize restaurants earlier this year, mandatory proof of vaccination is acting as a deterrent to company Christmas parties, said Thomas Horner, complex executive chef of the Westin and W Bellevue hotels in Bellevue, Wash.
“Only vaccinated guests can attend events at the hotels, and not every company can verify that all employees are vaccinated,” he said. “This makes it very difficult for party planners.” For that reason, social events and local charity events are down at his venues.
Shutting down
Julia Mabry is the owner of Pearl Bar in Houston, one of the country’s few remaining lesbian bars. She made the decision to temporarily close her establishment late last week after about half the staff—including Mabry—tested positive for COVID.
All of Pearl Bar’s 10 employees are vaccinated, she said, and have experienced mild symptoms.
“We have been doing exponentially well in 2021,” she said. “I’d say I’m losing between $30,000 and $40,000 in revenue being closed a week and a half.”
But there’s more to the closure calculus than just money, Mabry said.
“We’re considered like a second home to a lot of people,” she said. “A lot of people that are kind of disowned from their families, this is like a safe haven for a lot of people. That’s one of the things that makes this hard is they’re losing their home during the holidays and their friendships.”
Mabry paid her staff for the week off and posted pictures of their CashApp and Venmo handles on social media so they could get tips from customers.
In Chicago, deli owner Aaron Steingold has been closed for nearly a week after one of his managers tested positive for COVID. The entire staff of 13 is vaccinated and most have received booster shots.
“We went 22 months without a single positive test,” Steingold said. “Here we are. It’s obviously discouraging to see this uptick.”
Steingold’s said it intends to remain closed until Wednesday.
“We don’t love the fact that we aren’t making you bagels this morning,” the deli posted on social media over the weekend. “In fact, we are all screaming into the void in our respective houses counting the minutes until we can get back at it. But…we know that your safety and our safety are far too important. So this Sunday morning, if you normally would have stopped on by for some nosh, I’d ask that you get takeout to support another small business that also upholds Covid safety guidelines, eat it at home, and come back to us when we are all good and ready.”
Dashed hopes
Before omicron, Stulman had been banking on a big New Year’s Eve. Before the pandemic, it had been one of the biggest nights of the year for his restaurants. And, this year, with pent-up demand, he predicted it would be huge.
“Like six weeks ago, everything was looking great and we figured nobody celebrated New Year’s last year, so people are going to make up for it extra hard this year,” he said. “People are, like, going to buy the champagne. This New Year’s is shot. New Year’s just got kiboshed.”
This latest surge has left Stulman demoralized. He is unsure how to keep his restaurants staffed, how to pay for tests for his workers and how to pay his workers when they are out sick. He is unsure what to tell employees who don’t feel comfortable working in a restaurant right now.
And he desperately wants Congress to replenish its aid package for independent restaurants.
“I lost half my company already,” he said. “I’ve got four restaurants left. I would really like to not lose my sixth or seventh restaurant. RRF could be the difference in saving the four I’ve got.
“We’re right back where we were. A hot mess.”
RB Senior Editor Patricia Cobe contributed to this report.