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In a fitting finale to what has been a 2020 nightmare for the food industry, restaurants and bars will largely miss out on what should be one of the most lucrative nights of the year.
New Year’s Eve, famous for expensive meals and copious alcoholic beverages, will be a quiet affair as restaurants grapple with occupancy limits, early curfews, and in many parts of the US, prohibition. total of indoor meals.
“In recent years, the run-up to the holidays was the time for everyone in the business to make money to get through the lean months of winter,” said Kip Michel, general manager of renowned Brooklyn pizzeria Roberta’s. “It is a difficult time this year.”
Restaurants from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles are bracing for another hit, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to drive people away from crowded places and largely confined to their homes. Only 7% of Americans intend to go to a restaurant for New Year’s Eve, according to a Morning Consult survey, while the most common plans were to cook dinner at home or watch a movie.
The stakes are high for restaurants, which tend to do big business on the last night of the year. Visitors to Outback Steakhouse were up 48% on New Year’s Eve compared to an average day in 2019, while Olive Garden’s traffic increased 29% and Applebee’s increased 18%, according to an analysis by the firm of Placer.ai data tracking. Based on 2020 trends, those chains may see drops of more than 30% this year, the firm said.
“It’s going to be a dramatic loss of revenue,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, which represents restaurants and bars in New York City, a mecca for New Year’s Eve goers. That will hurt both companies and workers, he added, “with employees out of work or earning a fraction of the tips they would normally earn.”
Special menus
Restaurants are looking for creative ways to compensate for reduced sales, such as Zoom calls with magicians or special takeout menus and delivery at high-end rates. Del Frisco’s Grill in Hoboken, NJ, offers a to-go package of filet mignon, steamed lobster tail, and truffle mac n cheese. At DS Tequila Co. of Chicago, there is a package of fried chicken and champagne for New Years.
“Tonight is usually huge for us because we pack a food and drink package and we run out,” said Dusty Carpenter, director of operations and managing partner of Another Round Hospitality Group, owner of DS Tequila. For many customers, this year’s New Year’s Eve is “an afterthought.”
Many restaurants are dealing with curfews that come before the ball falls, putting another brake on the celebrations.
Papillon 25 in South Orange, NJ, must close at 10 p.m. due to state-imposed restrictions. The restaurant has struggled to make reservations for New Year’s Eve, when it would normally bring in as much as $ 20,000, according to co-owner Yanick Ranieri. It has scrapped the traditional New Year’s Eve special menu, but offers a free champagne toast.
“This year, if we win $ 3,000, we will consider ourselves lucky,” Ranieri said.
Porter, which just opened a few weeks ago in nearby Weehawken, NJ, will have two reduced-capacity seats starting at 4 p.m. M. And since diners have to leave before midnight, the restaurant offers wine to go with a 15% discount. You can continue the party at home.
‘Such a detriment’
Still, takeout alcohol, which has propelled some bars and restaurants through the pandemic, can only help up to a point. “Covid in general has been a detriment to the industry,” said Lynne Collier, an analyst at Loop Capital Markets. “The impact of New Year’s Eve exacerbates that situation.”
Indoor dining is off limits entirely across the Hudson River. In Manhattan’s Times Square, typically a tourist attraction that the Olive Garden location can charge $ 400 per person on New Year’s Eve, police have erected barriers to keep people away.
Andrew Carmellini, chef and owner of Noho Hospitality Group, which has 18 restaurants and bars, most based in New York, said he expects to generate just 25% of usual revenue this New Year’s Eve. Their locations have had to use creative solutions powered by Covid just to generate even a fraction of typical sales, including glass-walled sidewalk chalets to give diners an indoor-outdoors feel.
“One of the most used words of the year is pivot,” Carmellini said. “But you have to turn in the smartest way possible.”
Homeowners must also take the weather into account. Like the Carmellini chalets, Boston’s Woods Hill Pier 4 has installed dining “igloos” to help patrons cope with the freezing temperatures, which are expected to drop to a low of 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Diners preferred to eat outside in the warmer months, but are now thankful for the capsules with indoor lighting, owner Kristin Canty said.
“If it’s cold, they love it,” he said.
In Beverly Hills, where restaurants have been closed for everything but takeout, La Scala, the celebrity mainstay, was criticized for promoting a “clandestine” style indoor New Year’s Eve dinner with invitations stuck in delivery bags. .
After an image of the invitation went viral, the city reached out. In a statement posted on its website, the restaurant said it was considering an event only if restrictions related to the virus were lifted before the holidays and that the person who wrote the invitation wrongly said the party would be indoors.
“If everyone turned their hatred into love and directed it at the people who need it instead of attacking small businesses trying to survive, it would be a better use of their time,” the restaurant said.
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