Posted on 05/31/2021 1:12:48 PM PDT by lightman
Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf chose Memorial Day to lay to rest the last of his COVID-19 restaurant and bar restrictions, with a return to full capacity.
But beleaguered restaurant owners said it will be a long time before their industry returns to anything close to 100 percent, following the coronavirus pandemic that made dining and drinking in pubic unthinkable to many.
Wolf did the battered industry no favors in selecting a holiday known for backyard barbecues, not crowded bars, to do away with the last of his capacity restrictions. Still, most restaurant owners and managers interviewed Monday by PennLive said little of what the governor has done lately will boost their still-far-off comeback.
That’s because neither Wolf, nor any politician, can do much about the soaring food prices and increasing supply shortages that threaten to put chicken wings nearly out of reach. And many owners point to political decisions in both D.C. and Harrisburg for making it far harder and much costlier to hire desperately needed staff.
“It seems like the restaurant industry is plagued with more issues than anybody else out there,” said Don Carter, owner of Dukes and Dockside Willie’s in Lemoyne. “We have this deadly combination of employees, product and customers. It’s just a combination that on any given day carries a lot of difficulties with it.”
The problems, Carter said, are these: Restaurants are competing for workers not only with the likes of Amazon warehouses and summer lawn services – but with enhanced state and federal unemployment benefits that reward many for doing nothing.
Gov. Wolf can lift whatever restrictions he wants, Carter added. The fact is, some customers remain wary of dining inside. As a result, there could be lines to get in or tables going begging at any given restaurant on any given day.
Dedicated dining establishments must be ready for either scenario.
And just as restaurants finally do get customers seated and perusing a menu, some diners develop sticker shock over food prices that have shot up markedly due to spot shortages, supply chain issues and general inflation, Carter added.
“We have to get all our work done, no matter how many people hit our doors,” he said of the unpredictable hospitality business. “That is a tough thing to pull off every day.”
It’s why in the restaurant business, nothing is back to normal – and won’t be for a long time, Carter insisted.
“How long is this going to go on? We don’t know. But it’s going to go on for a while,” he predicted.
Phil Guarno, owner of Fenicci’s in Hershey, likens Gov. Wolf lifting capacity restrictions to a child pressing buttons on a toy computer. It simply has no effect on the realities of the post-pandemic restaurant business.
“He doesn’t dictate how many people I sit, and he has never dictated it,” Guarno said of Wolf’s sliding scale of COVID-19 capacity limits, from a low of 25% to the most recently lifted 75%.
In reality, no restaurant ever operates at full capacity, Guarno noted. A couple seated a four-top table cuts that table’s capacity in half right there. That’s multiplied by every seat at every table that goes unfilled by the complicated math of different-numbered dining parties.
With about half of his customers still leery of COVID-19, Guarno said he took it upon himself to redesign his restaurant’s floorplan, permanently removing about 50 seats. This, to give cautious customers the breathing room they require to feel more comfortable.
“I think it is totally a new normal; I don’t think we will ever be back,” said Guarno, explaining why his restaurant now seats just 200 people, instead of 250.
“People don’t want to have New York City-style seating,” he added. “For at least 50 percent of the population, this is the new normal. I need both 50-percents to survive, so that makes it my new normal. I would rather err on the side of people feeling comfortable.”
While some restaurant-goers aren’t ready to dine or drink elbow-to-elbow, Guarno did ease Fenicci’s facemask policy, effective this weekend. He made the masks optional for both staff and customers who are fully vaccinated.
This weekend, he observed only about four of his 34 staff wearing them. Meanwhile, nearly half of his customers masked up when not seated at their table.
Those are the customers daring enough to dine inside. Many more still aren’t ready to do so, accounting for a whopping 300% increase in Fenicci’s takeout business.
“People come in for $200 dinners to eat in a hotel room,” Guarno said of out-of-town visitors pouring back into a Hershey for a day at the amusement park. “There are a certain amount of people who are genuinely nervous.”
Others still seem confused about all the protocols as Pennsylvania slowly emerges from the pandemic.
Mike Walters strolled into Arooga’s downtown for lunch with his teen-age nephews, who were visiting from Vero Beach, Florida. The trio were all wearing masks as they entered the nearly empty restaurant just before noon Monday. Arooga’s
Yet Walters, from Columbia, Lancaster County, and his two nephews said they’re anything but apprehensive about dining out. Walters said he’s fully vaccinated and while his nephews aren’t, they’re from Florida. From the looks of mask-less crowds crammed into busy Sunshine State eateries, the pandemic has been over down there for some time now.
“No one really cares. No one really wears a mask. You can just walk into a restaurant and sit down,” said 15-year-old Eli Cleveland, describing the dining scene in Vero Beach.
If anything, Walters said he’s simply out of practice going out after more than a year of living with lockdowns and dashing in and out for take-out.
“I wouldn’t have any problems. I did what I needed to do as far as getting vaccinated,” Walters said. “I used to go out all the time -- three or four times a week. That need to go out has diminished somewhat.”
Walters pessimistically predicted it could be a year or more before he’s fully back into the going-out groove.
Luckily many flocking to the Arooga’s downtown, which tends to attract younger drinkers and diners, don’t feel the same.
The location’s general manager, James Hale, said he’s been seeing lines around the block to be seated at peak times.
“People are just so excited after being locked down for over a year. It’s like a vacation right now,” Hale said. Arooga’s
In fact, the manager doesn’t need a fancy graph to chart his restaurant’s rise from the COVID-19 lows. He can see its progress coming back from the pandemic as more and more beer tap handles begin to populate the restaurant’s 62-draft bar system.
When everything but take-out was banned, Arooga’s drafts dropped to absolute zero. For months, just 19 of the most common beer brands could be had on tap. Now, Arooga’s is offering 45 different draft beers – well on the way to its own version of full capacity.
The biggest hurdle ahead for Arooga’s return could be the rapidly rising wing prices that have rendered its 60-cent wing night specials a thing of the past. Now, expect to shell out nearly $14 bucks for a dozen bone-in wings.
“It’s the highest I’ve ever seen,” Hale said, making the once-spendy Super Bowl price surge seem like chump change.
Wing purveyors flock together when it comes to lamenting the large price increases that they’re forced to foist upon their just-returning customers.
“Food costs are astronomical right now,” agreed Romeo LaMarco, owner of Ted’s Bar & Grill, with wing-centric locations in Harrisburg, West Hanover Township and Annville.
LaMarco said he’s already revised his menu prices twice, and the constant, unpredictable wing price fluctuations could soon have him listing a “market price” for the once-cheap blue collar and blue cheese delicacy. Typically, that’s a mysterious menu price marker reserved for the likes of lobster and the choicest’s steaks.
“Wings are just unbelievable,” he added “Case prices more than doubled, and of course our restaurants are wing joints. We find ourselves in a real predicament.”
Just as cautious customers creep back from COVID-19, they’re hit with a severe case of menu sticker shock. But restaurateurs say they have no choice.
“All those costs trickle down the consumer,” said LaMarco. “We can no longer absorb the increases. It’s a perfect storm right now. We’re not out of it yet.”
Still, LaMarco and most of his Central Pa. competitors in the beleaguered restaurant business are optimistic long term. After all, they’ve withstood the worst of what the coronavirus and resulting lockdowns had to dish out.
“The restaurant industry has been devastated by this pandemic,” he said. “I don’t think anything could be as hard as what we had to deal with last year. We have weathered the storm.”
The sailing ahead will be anything but smooth, yet the danger of sinking has passed.
“We’re getting busier, but everything else is gobbling up the profits,” LaMarco said. “Are we profitable? We are still not profitable. But we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.”
From March 2020 until the appoint that muddled mophead was the face of Pennsylvania's draconian restrictions and daily doom reports.
Most of the restaurant industry's woes are due to that she/he/it's reactions.
Strange that we don’t have these problems in Georgia, Florida, or Texas.
I wonder what the difference could be...
We certainly have the chicken wing price problem in FL.
Just, as a broad statement, we are so much like a dictatorship now, at many levels. How many states actually passed legislation that mandated COVID restrictions? In how many cases was it just some governor waving his magic wand declaring, "Here's how it is."
And now, I suppose, the governor can unwave his wand, and say "I grant you some limited freedom. You stinking peasants."
“I wonder what the difference could be...”
Probably lots of differences could be put on the table. For my contribution, I’ll propose that folks in those states didn’t have all the common sense pounded out of them by the likes of their former health commissioner like in PA. I think the article shows a significant portion of the people of PA are bought in to all the fear porn that has been bandied about for nearly 18 months.
Oh we have prices going up too. I was referring mainly to the ongoing lockdowns out of fear of the China virus. A problem here (GA) is people getting paid more to stay home that they made at work (thanks, Joe). Restaurants, etc, can open fully, but they are all struggling to get enough staff.
Chicken wing price problem = other people are willing to pay more for chicken wings. How dare them.
The local supermarket has a huge wing bar. They sell tons of wings because they mark them up less than the restaurants. Free Market.
We had lunch today at a national chain restaurant and were speaking to a waitress who was wearing a mask. We were joking that we couldn’t tell our server from the others because of the masks.
She said they’re allowed to ditch the masks if they’ve had vaccines. They don’t want vaccines, and I didn’t see one server without a mask. This girl’s reason was that she wanted to have children some day and was afraid what might happen in her reproductive system.
Quite honestly, the vast majority of restaurant and business owners in PA sat of their hands and didn’t do anything more than go along with Wolf’s and his tranny butt buddy’s mandates. This is what happens when people do not fight. Now they will pay the price. It is unfortunate, but the truth.
The fear created by the democrat politicians, the media, social media censoring, Hollywood, big corps, academia and late night ‘comedy’ shows will not be easily and undone. They have scared the crap out of people - kids wearing masks outside and young healthy people taking an experimental vaccine are examples. Many, for now, are literally too scared to function in society as they did before 2020.
Your list is the reason I wrote, “vast majority”. Thanks for posting it again.
bkmk
“I don’t think we will ever be back.”
Please stop wringing your hands and stop worrying. People want to go out to eat.
Things are back to normal at iHOP this morning in So Cal. Full house. It has been back to normal for two months despite the numerous, unreasonable and useless covid rules from Calif. and Los Angeles politicians.
I stopped feeling sympathy for the restaurant industry when they refused to stand up to Deep State.
Go out to eat?
Let’s see...
Poor quality food, higher prices, lousy service.
Why would I want to go out to eat?!
All but one waitress had the masks off. I would say a good 75% of the customers had their masks off coming in and going out. Lot of smiles and laughter. And the place was packed. When I was leaving, there was actually people outside waiting for a table.
This may come back quicker than we thought. But no doubt, the government has done a phenomenal amount of damage to our economy with this pandemic hoax.
I went to several stores, and had a mask in my pocket. I observed that the signs for masks were gone, so I did not wear it. However, almost 90% of the people did and acted like I was a leprosy patient. No one said anything, but many distanced themselves.
The Fear is permanently ingrained in many, and Restaurants will struggle to come back completely.
If you'd have coughed it could have started a stampede! LOL
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