By Sarah Blaskovich
04:00 on July 23, 2020 CDT
Restaurants in North Texas will likely fail in the next forty-five days. That’s according to Ray Washburne, the Dallas businessman who owns Highland Park Village and has invested in 65 restaurants, adding My Kitchen, Katy Trail Ice House, The Rustic, Hudson House, Up on Knox and CR Wine Food and Wine Bar.
“There’s incredible carnage in the places to eat industry right now,” he said in a call with downtown Dallas Inc. “You’re not going to know how many other people would possibly not succeed.”
Tom Fleming, chef and owner of Crossroads Diner, is one of many independent restaurateurs in Dallas-Fort Worth that has been affected. It’s down more than 50%.
“This is what I know,” Fleming says, “humanity has never controlled itself from a virus. And I don’t think we’re about to do it now. But the truth is that if other people don’t leave their homes or order from the restaurants, particularly the independent ones, we may not be there in the next forty-five days.”
At least 25% of Texas restaurants will fail this pandemic, and the most vulnerable businesses are independently owned, said Emily Williams Knight, president and chief executive of the Texas Restaurant Association. That number will increase if the government does not offer more cash to restaurateurs in the next 3 weeks, he said.
An organization called the Independent Restaurant Coalition is looking to convince Congress to inject $120 in bills into independent restaurants. The bill, called the Restaurant Act, brought the Senate and the House. It is too early to say whether the bill will be considered for the next COVID-19 aid package, however, a Restaurant Coalition spokesman said it enjoys “growing bipartisan support.”
The chefs, adding John Tesar, wonder who the pandemic might look and what the scene of the place to eat on the other side will look like.
“I hope that dressed in a mask and fashion medicine will save us, because I don’t think we can spend six months,” says Tesar, who operates knife steakhouse in Dallas. Despite the pandemic, he continues to paint plans to open 3 new restaurants in Laguna Beach, California; Orlando Florida; and Austin.
Heather Nguyen, a progressive spouse at NewQuest Properties, who runs 15 Asian businesses at Carrollton Town Center and Frisco Ranch, says the mother and circle of family members will struggle to stay open.
“It’s his livelihood,” he says. “They put their whole center and soul into it, and they’ll do everything they can to keep it going.”
None of his restaurants in downtown Carrollton or Frisco Ranch have called him yet. But if the canteens were reduced to less than 50% occupancy, you don’t know if many independent restaurants in Texas could survive. According to the knowledge of the U.S. Census Bureau, sales of food and beverage institutions nationwide fell to $94 billion in March, April and May.
In addition, restaurateurs’ passions, serving customers, preparing smart food and believing they can innovate, can contribute to their declines, says chef Stephan Pyles of Dallas.
“I can only believe if this had happened during my moments of utmost passion,” he says. “I would have rolled to the end, until we were all in the space of the poor.
He was delivered just in time. Its ultra-chic restaurant Stephan Pyles Flora Street Cafe closed in early 2020. Sales are down and Dallas diners will move away from the cuisine.
“What was stupid luck seems brilliant,” says Pyles, who is now retired from catering operations after more than 3 decades in Dallas. “I couldn’t have had a 50% reduction. Much less an 80% reduction.”
Dozens of independent restaurants have closed since the coronavirus pandemic began. The family-run Start restaurant closed its two institutions after its owner, Erin McKool, said it operated with “tiny” margins and had no reserves of money for several devastating months. She said in March what others have echoed since then: “It was too expensive to stay open.”
Restaurants and small ones have closed: Sushi Bayashi in West Dallas; Penne Pomodoro in Lakewood; Highland Park Cafeteria; TGI Friday’s in the West End; Bird Cafe in Fort Worth and Five Sixty through Chef Wolfgang Puck, the fast-paced place to eat at Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas. Twisted Root, an operated, Dallas-owned burger chain, closed all of its places to eat and filed for bankruptcy.
And how bad can it be in Texas, when the number of COVID-19 cases is expanding and Gov. Greg Abbott has limited canteens to 50% of their capacity? Here are 3 reviews:
“If I had a restaurant, I’d toast,” Washburne says.
“We burn money,” says Tony Montero, CEO of Hai Hospitality. His company operates six restaurants in Texas, the well-known Uchi.
“If there’s no vaccine, or if other people can’t beat the concern [of going to a restaurant], I think we’ll see that many more restaurants give up,” Nguyen says.
Restaurateurs like Pyles are concerned that small circles of family restaurants will not only suffer, but possibly disappear.
“When that goes away, there will be basically large retail stores and chain restaurants,” Pyles says. “It’s about who has the capital to support, and the more independent places to eat don’t. Array… The idea that there’s still nothing Walmart and Olive Garden is a scary idea. But it can be, it may be something of this level. “
Pyles says the COVID-19 pandemic will involve a restructuring of the food site sector. And this restructuring will be permanent.
“It’s bigger than anything we’ve ever seen,” he said. During the 2008 recession, he says, his place to eat was reduced from 20 to 25%. Most restorers surveyed for this report say that today their business has fallen by at least 30% in recent months, and at most it says that 40% or 50% is more so.
“They will inform you from that moment on,” Pyles says of the recessions. And that can be one thing: it teaches restaurateurs to be thin and resilient. But the COVID-19 pandemic is worse than a recession and worse than the consequences of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pyles says:
“What we know about the place to eat is over for the foreseeable future.”
Washburne says the eating places industry will be sitting on a four-legged stool for the next forty-five days. Cut any leg and a place to eat can fail.
The first step is the federal paycheck coverage program, which has noticed the participation of nearly 1,000 restaurants in North Texas at the rate of about $475 million.
“PPP did what it intended to do, but now it’s exhausted,” Washburne says. “If you haven’t taken care of the road back to 60% or 70% of pre-pandemic sales, you have a lot of problems.”
The step of the moment is the assistance of the owners. It was imperative that restaurateurs ask their owners for a break, Said Fort Worth restaurateur Tim Love when the pandemic began. But homeowners aren’t going to remain so lenient, Washburne says: They also have expenses to pay. And he knows it: either he’s a restaurateur and an owner.
“Those who were very friendly in April and May are no longer friendly,” he says.
The third step is the loading of goods. Prices for meat, dairy and alcoholic beverages are soaring for suffering restaurateurs.
Restaurateurs are also paying new costs: workers’ masks and takeaway boxes for business on the street. Washburne says the packaging is sold “at a higher price.”
“If I buy a $50 steak, it’s the same package as a $12 enchilada dinner,” he says. “The lower its price, the more your margin will be crushed.”
The fourth step is the role of government regulation of canteens. Abbott has closed bars and 50% catering capacity. Some restaurants have an occupancy rate of 50%. Many aren’t.
Washburne says My Kitchen is “playing like a dog” to succeed at the balance point. At Katy Trail Ice House, the profits are zero because Abbott has closed bars in Texas.
None of the stool’s feet are solid, Washburne says: if you have a one-time restaurant, your PPP is exhausted and its owner is you and the cargo of the goods is going up. Arrangement.. Can I paint a darker picture? »
The food is dead, Pyles argues. For now, anyway.
The cuisine suffered in Dallas before the pandemic began, when restaurants like Flora Street Cafe didn’t seem to resonate among well-off diners. And now, in the midst of a pandemic, a plate of fern-topped snails with a violin head, a dish that the Pyles team once served in an exclusive tasting room called Fauna, turns out as a joke.
“We’re done,” Pyles said, referring to the dramatic of gastronomy.
He believes that diners crave fast food in difficult times. “It was highly unlikely to sell foie gras, caviar, lobster,” he says, recalling the restaurant’s climate just after 9/11. “People didn’t need that.” They were looking for fried chicken. Vegetables. Macaroni and cheese.
That’s also what they do today. Fleming’s most popular dishes lately at Crossroads Diner are eggs and bacon, golden potatoes and sticky buns.
“People crave things that remind them of safety, remind them of the times,” Fleming says.
Restaurants that don’t offer convenience food are changing their menus to please diners. At Homewood in Dallas, executive chef Matt McCallister’s team recently sold melted cakes. And pizza. Although Homewood’s food has been designed to be accessible, a fondue empanada is a vital penchant for pandemic fast food.
For the first time, Uchi promotes takeaways.
“Did we even talk about doing it?” Montero said. As an exclusive Japanese eater with quirky dishes, Executive Chef Tyson Cole’s food at Uchi was never designed to be placed in a box and tucked into someone’s trunk. But chefs have created a street menu that includes some of Uchi’s favorite takeaways, such as a dish of raw bloodless fish called akami te, made with watermelon and obese tuna.
“I would say the sidewalk, for us, will be there forever, ” said Montero.
However, sending raw fish in a vehicle is a challenge. The same applies to the packaging of homemade soups and noodles, which can improve the quality of dishes in restaurants that sell intensive labor ramen.
“Whenever they are able to pack and deliver, that’s the key,” says Nguyen. Many of the Asian corporations it represents seek delivery for the first time.
And as restaurants open and close, chefs with rare culinary threats waste their work.
“Many of them, without making a profit, need to keep their doors open to remain their workers,” Nguyen says. “It’s very difficult to exercise those workers who make noodles or rice. He’s a talented talent. They’re hard to find.”
With 50% occupancy, Nguyen says, his clients are “just grateful to be open.”
A momentary shutdown would be a disaster, all the restaurateurs interviewed for the report said. But Maximum didn’t even need to communicate about it. They’re concentrating on today and next week.
“What we’re looking to do right now is just cover the expenses and give us the opportunity to work,” Montero says.
But the balance point “is a viable way to run a business in the long run,” he says.
His company, Hai Hospitality, has developed a “playbook” for each and every scenario imaginable: how to operate at 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, only in the courtyard, only on the edge of the street, etc.
Some places to eat had good months in May, because of what Knight of the Texas Restaurant Association called the “repressed demand” of consumers who missed the place’s dining experience. (And since the pandemic, dozens of places to eat have been opened despite the economic climate.) Montero says his places to eat have also noticed this increase. But then the COVID-19 instances began to climb in Texas.
Montero with Washburne that the next forty-five days are very important for the survival of restaurants, but says the next five to ten days can be equally critical.
“There are probably places to eat today, in mid-July, that say, “I don’t even know if I’ll open in August,” he says. “The next six months are for the food places industry. Who can see the other aspect of the situation?”
Pyles says his pre-stay plan was to account for the bad months. “You knew Dallas in the summer was miserable. So you actually had to make reservations to get to July,” he says. So what happens when March, April, May and June bring horrible returns in 2020 before an expected “miserable” July? Dallas restaurants like The Lot, a position that made money during the sunny months, closed permanently in April, as soon as the owner, John McBride, learned that he would not earn enough in the most important months.
Montero echoes the feelings of other restaurateurs by saying that the pandemic looks like a guessing game. Some small business owners like Double Wide’s Kim Finch have felt vulnerable as they seek to be informed about the most productive practices in the event of a pandemic to ensure their safety and their customers. Others, such as Donny Sirisavath of Khao Noodle Shop, have had to reinvent their menus and alter their business models.
“You wake up every morning and wonder what’s going to happen today.” Montero said. “It’s almost to execute a genuine style right now. You propose other scenarios, and then you move on to what it looks like today.”
Sarah Blaskovich, gastronomic writer. Sarah writes about Dallas’ restaurants, bars and culture. He also appears on NBC5 twice a week. Follow @sblaskovich and ask what to do, where to eat, or where to drink in your ward.
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