Restaurants Brace For A Brutal Winter As Indoor Dining Pauses In NYC Again
arrow Inside Pastis Scott Lynch/Gothamist
Last Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that indoor dining would be shut down in New York City starting today, a move that had been expected for weeks as local hospitalization rates continued to climb steadily. But despite the forewarning about an indoor dining suspension, restaurant owners are still processing how to survive this winter. After investing money in upgraded air filtration, UV lights, plexi dividers, contactless equipment and so much more, it is just beyond frustrating to be shut down again and have to lay off our staff again, Jeffrey Bank, president of the Alicart Restaurant Group (which runs Carmine s and Virgil s Real BBQ), told Gothamist. The real kicker now is you are laying off staff when there are no extended benefits and no $600 checks. Just like in
Restaurateurs on the Las Vegas Strip Cope With Diminished Capacity but Vow to Carry On
Four restaurant owners on the Strip share what business is like right now and how they will survive
The Las Vegas Strip in front of the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas |
A little more than two weeks into the state’s “pause” that restricted restaurants and bars to 25 percent capacity, permitted only four people per table, and required reservations to slow the spread of COVID-19, independent restaurant owners on the Strip are still trying to figure out how to adapt to make these mandates work. Gov. Steve Sisolak called for three weeks of new restrictions ahead of Thanksgiving, just as restaurants were preparing to serve visitors prix fixe menus of Diestel Farms turkey slices and wedges of pumpkin pie that had, in the past, been a slight revenue boon for November. The new mandates reduced capacity by half of what it had been the previous six months, putting new obstacles in the way of rest
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As of Monday, December 14, indoor dining will once again by banned in New York City. Governor Cuomo announced the restaurant rollback in a press conference earlier today, a reaction to the rising spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations and positive case rates throughout New York State.
The news comes not even three months after the governor reopened New York dining rooms at 25-percent capacity. In the weeks in between, restaurant and bar owners have grappled with ever-changing state and city mandates, with the
whens and
whats of whether indoor dining would close again and if, more importantly, federal aid for the depleted restaurant industry would ever come.