Since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott gave restaurants the green light to reopen their dining rooms at a quarter of their regular capacity on May 1, many restaurants that reopened are experiencing a steady hum of business as some diners eagerly return to the public sphere.
With capacity restrictions possibly increasing to 50% next week, more restaurants are planning to reopen while others are choosing to keep their dining rooms closed and focus solely on their growing take-out business. Even those restaurant owners who reopened their dining rooms say take-out orders are keeping them afloat and likely will continue to be the driving force of their business even with an increase in dining capacity.
Dallas Hale, CEO of Shell Shack and Sushi Marquee, said although in-restaurant business has been steady since May 1 when all 10 locations of the two restaurants reopened, take-out orders account for 95% of their sales. Prior to COVID-19, only 5% of the restaurants’ business came from takeout.
Operating at 25% capacity means even on a busy night like Wednesday at Sushi Marquee in Frisco, where a line formed of people waiting for tables, the number of diners is not enough to cover operating expenses.
“There is not a restaurant out there that can survive at a 25% occupancy,” Hale said. “It helps to get people working and everything, so it’s better than an empty restaurant, but you know, it definitely doesn’t pay the bills.”
This will improve somewhat when restaurants are able to open at 50% capacity, he added, but take-out orders will likely continue to drive business as many people choose to stay home. Shell Shack and Sushi Marquee are currently doing 500% more take-out orders than they did before the pandemic, which has taxed their ordering infrastructure but helped them stay open.
Front Burner Restaurants, the group behind a handful of restaurant concepts throughout Dallas-Fort Worth, has had such significant success with takeout that the company is reworking its business model.
CEO Randy Dewitt said they have had fairly consistent business since they opened all locations of Ida Claire, Whiskey Cake, Mexican Sugar, The Ranch, Haywire and Sixty Vines for dine-in service, but take-out orders, meal kits and to-go alcohol sales are increasing in popularity and currently account for about 50% of their sales.
“The rainbow that came after the storm of COVID-19 was really restaurants discovering that they could do curbside takeaway, and consumers realizing that they can get restaurant food that way, and they really seem to enjoy it," he said. "I think pretty much everyone is going to stick with this curbside pickup and to-go. We’re already designing modifications to our buildings and where we are under development for new restaurants. We are changing the design to adapt so that the physical space can actually accommodate a robust to-go program. I think it’s going to be another long-term revenue stream for the typical full-service restaurants.”
Although an increase from 25% to 50% for dining room capacity sounds like a doubling of business, Dewitt said that won’t be the case for most restaurants after they spread their tables out 6 feet apart.
That is the dilemma Sammy Mandell of Greenville Avenue Pizza Company is up against. He has yet to open the dining rooms of his two restaurant locations because customers initially expressed safety concerns over restaurants opening their dining room too soon, and 25% capacity in his restaurants would mean seating just a handful of people.
Even if 50% capacity is allowed, Mandell said it won’t actually change the number of guests that can be seated at small restaurants like his.
“There’s a big difference between big restaurants and small restaurants. I think something the government is not addressing is that for small square-footage businesses, the percentage occupancy increase does not affect us,” he said. “Social distancing, in the end, dictates occupancy. So if you are like us, our occupancy at 25% is 12 people. Even when they go to 50%, with social distancing in play, our occupancy is still 12 people.”
Mandell said he is looking into using plexiglass dividers as a way to be able to eventually reopen his dining rooms and seat more than a dozen diners. For now though, he’s sitting tight and keeping his doors closed to the public.
And so is Misti Norris of Petra and the Beast in East Dallas who, like many restaurant operators, said it is still too soon to have diners gathered in restaurants.
“We don’t feel safe enough,” said the chef and owner. “For the safety of my staff and our guests, I just think it’s the best decision for us right now. Number one priority is safety, and the experience our customers would end up getting is not fully representative of what we do as a restaurant, and it wouldn’t be right either way. So for now we’ve decided to keep it curbside.”
Restaurants like Il Bracco, which is open for take-out and dine-in service, and TJ’s Seafood Market & Grill, which is set to reopen its Royal Lane dining room this weekend, are working to implement additional safety measures beyond stringent sanitation and social distancing.
Robert Quick, owner of Il Bracco, said he is looking into securing COVID-19 testing and antibody testing for his staff. Jon Alexis, owner of TJ’s Seafood Market & Grill and Malibu Poke, had COVID-19 testing done for his entire staff at both restaurant concepts and will continue to do recurring testing through SafeWork, a company he is a partner in, that does onsite workplace testing.
“The bottom line is, testing doesn’t prevent COVID-19. Testing prevents outbreaks," Alexis said. “I can’t control COVID-19, but what I can control is one employee who is an asymptomatic, an infectious carrier creating an outbreak between my staff and my guests. And that’s what we’re doing. It’s not a magic bullet; it’s just the best tool we have right now.”
He is opening TJ’s Seafood Market at Preston and Royal for two all-inclusive dinners with wine pairings on Friday and Saturday. Each dinner will be prepaid and have a set menu to ensure that the entire experience is contactless.
“This is as much about taking the temperature of guest expectations” he said. “What we’re trying to figure out is how you deliver an experience to a diner that is anything close to what we miss. … What we did is we figured out that by doing a seated dinner where everybody sits down at the same time and everyone pays in advance, it gives us a chance to control the variables we were worried about.”
After this weekend, Alexis said he will re-evaluate to see if his restaurants will join the ranks of those welcoming diners on a regular basis or stick to takeout only.
“I want to know how the staff felt. Did they feel comfortable? Did they feel safe? If it all felt good and groovy to them, then I’m going to ask how it went for the guests,” Alexis said. “Were the guests happy? Did the guests feel like it was an experience worth their money? Did they feel it was better than eating to-go food in their living rooms? That’s the test.”
