COVID-19: from the restaurant scene March 2020

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Rue Cler will be suspending service indefinitely. After the next payroll all of our employees will be furloughed. Unless something changes, we will never re-open and our landlord will probably sue me personally for the balance of the lease. 33 people who support themselves and their families with earnings from Rue Cler will be out of work.

This is the reality of where we stand today. All of your favorite spots, if they are independently owned (or maybe even if they're corporate) are going to go out of business as well as the businesses that serve them.

This is catastrophic for the food and wine industry. Worse than 9/11 and 2008.

There really isn't anything you can do other than to make sure that your state and federal representatives support a bail out for the service industry. Our employees will need immediate and easy access to unemployment insurance and businesses will need a direct cash infusion.

It'll be a lot less that bailing out fuckhead bankers who brought it on themselves. Our business was doing better than ever and we were paying real, living wages to our employees. This was an externality that no one could prepare for as it just isn't really possible with restaurant margins to have 6 months of cash to cover fixed expenses at the ready.

The human toll of this won't be just those who died from the virus an entire industry will be wiped out if leadership does nothing. Unless society totally crumbles and no one studies disease anymore, I'll be fine, I still have a day job unrelated to the industry. 33 people who worked for Rue Cler will not and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
 
Sorry to hear this Nathan. Im sure this decision was devastating for you personally and your employees. i wish there was something we could do to help.
 
originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Sorry to hear this Nathan. Im sure this decision was devastating for you personally and your employees. i wish there was something we could do to help.
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Hold your representatives accountable for what they do or don't do for the tens of millions of people that will be directly affected.
 
So sorry to hear that. I’ve been thinking about you and was going to email but figured you were swamped on both fronts: the studying of the disease and dealing with the restaurant.

What’s even more frightening is that it’s not a local problem. It’s national/global and hard to imagine what changes will come to economies/cultures/livelihoods around the world.
 
We were told that we were closing Del Posto on Saturday evening before service. Luckily we are laid off and can apply for unemployment. I hope NY still wants Sommeliers when this is over, I would love to take my job back.

- J
 
Condolences, hang in there, and you know what to do November 3rd. How do you feel about 0% interest short term loans? Should be a no-brainer for the government to back, given current negative real interest rates. Oh, wait...
 
I am so sorry for this, Nathan and John. I have been thinking about the situation for the restaurant industry and sad for days as it became clear where we were headed. Then the closings started in earnest in NYC over the weekend. And Racines announced just a short time ago they let everyone go and are closing to try to ride out the virus.

I hope that state and federal support, for the workers and restaurant owners, will try to and can bridge the liquidity gap, even if it seems like an uphill battle. Human dignity and decency demand it.
 
Dear Friends, Patrons, Wine Lovers:

As we write this, it's 5:00pm in New York. Normally right now we (and countless other restaurants) would be sitting down with our staff to discuss daily specials, new dishes, new and exciting wines, server sections, going over our guest list in preparation to welcome you all. Last week, that included a long list of meticulous protocols and procedures to do this safely. Tonight we won't. Indeed, we all need to do our part to fight, to help to stop this pandemic as early as possible.

It is with--not heavy, but--broken hearts we had to lay off our entire team today. At least we had family meal together.

We regret to inform you that have also decided we will not shift gears to offer take-out and delivery. We've never offered it before, it's not really in our wheelhouse, and, quite frankly, we don't think it's the right solution to a very big problem. The Civil Authorities have changed direction & advisement day by day, hour by hour. How long before take-out is cut off, too? Would failure in the short term effectively doom the long term goal to re-open in a new dawn, better than absolutely ever? The uncertainties are just too much.

This is not an original idea: but you can help restaurants survive this indefinite but temporary closure by purchasing a Gift Card. As an esteemed Chef pointed out: It's a pass-through business. We have vendors to pay for the past weeks. We want to do something for our staff, while others have been unable to. Buying Gift Cards is like extending a short term loan to the restaurant that gets paid back on an unscheduled basis: when we are free to feast and imbibe together again.

Today, Racines NY is offering eGift Cards for the very first time.

We sincerely can't thank you enough for your support and your enthusiasm for our little wine restaurant over the years, and particularly the extraordinary show of love and support last week. Thank you for standing behind us. We anxiously await to welcome you, healthy and happy, as soon as it will be safe for all.

à bientôt.
 
Nathan and John, try to remain hopeful. It's not like everyone decided they don't want to ever eat again -- we just have an obstacle to get past.

File all the paperwork. Look for the loans. Do whatever you have to do to keep your ship afloat.
 
HP-PR and Hall PR have announced "Dining Bonds" - essentially, a gift certificate program, bought from a restaurant at 25% off face value, to be redeemed sometime later. All that is required is to sign up (no fees) and place the logo on your resto website.

Participating restos here, article about it here.

...I see downtown names like Aquavit and the Blue Note on the list, as well as local joints to me like June Wine Bar and Rucola.
 
Inc. is maintaining a tracker for resources: click

The Restaurant Workers' Community Foundation has started a crisis fund: click. Additional funds and assistance are listed on their Resource page: click

NYC Small Business zero-interest loans: click

ETA: I see that Racines' gift card goes through a different vendor: click
 
I am so sorry for all of you who are involved in the hospitality industries and especially for you and your employees, my simian friend. Fuck emerging pathogens, and fuck human complacency and self-absorption.

May we all survive the incipient plague.
Mark Lipton
 
Nathan, I am so sorry about the demise of Rue Cler. And equally, I am upset to learn that so many business - restaurants among them - live on very thin margins and will not survive this crunch.

I can only hope that once the dust settles and the virus is no longer as dangerous, that all of us can rebuild our lives.

And Fuck Trump.
 
Nathan - I am so sorry. What most people don't realize is how even in the best times most restaurants are just barely surviving. I get asked once a week either to invest in a restaurant or why I don't. The answer is simple it is one of the hardest businesses in the world and almost no restaurant I would want to be associated with would ever make money (I realize this is not the sole purpose just making a point). I have the utmost respect for every restauranteur and those who choose this field as a career. I am trying to buy as many gift cards as I can and ordering take out but it feels like this is not enough...
 
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