COVID-19: from the restaurant scene March 2020

Thank you everyone. Just to reiterate, I am perfectly fine and will be working as long as their are things like COVID-19 out there.

Who I am really worried about are the employees of the restaurant. The NC governor has done the right thing by making it easier to get unemployment insurance. We are going to use our remaining stocks of food at the restaurant to feed any of our employees that need it. These folks live day to day and can't absorb a shock like this for long.

Steph and I are also donating to the food bank (cash not foodstuffs) and putting in calls to our representatives to support direct cash payments to individuals and small businesses. Changes to employment taxes don't help if no one is employed and suspension of sales tax wouldn't help anyway.

If you are able do whatever you can to help others. Unfortunately, I think that Robert is correct that take out and gift cards will not keep independent restaurants going but if you have the resources, it can keep people fed until a bigger stimulus in enacted and a wider social safety net is in place. Let your representatives know that you support direct action to support small businesses.

Again, I am fine, just very, very sad and concerned for the well-being of our employees.
 
Sorry to read this. My experience thus far in Singapore and Beijing is more akin to winnowing, but reports from the US make it sound like so much of the grain is lost along with the chaff.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
Sorry to read this. My experience thus far in Singapore and Beijing is more akin to winnowing, but reports from the US make it sound like so much of the grain is lost along with the chaff.
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Here, it is everyone. February was our best month in the last two years, maybe ever, I didn't go back any further. EVERYONE here is hosed, from Beard winners and steak houses to spots like ours. Some folks can pivot to take out. We looked at the numbers and thought about it and decided that wasn't going to work for us. I hope it works for other folks. We decided to protect the little capital we had left in the hopes of re-opening after a return to whatever the new normal will be. Our landlord has offered rent abatement that will help.

Again, I will be OK. My real concern is for our employees and my hope is that they can quickly get unemployment benefits and will get direct stimulus checks. In the back of my mind, I have a gnawing feeling that McConnell and the Republicans will do something evil in that bill. They always seem to choose evil.
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Yixin:
Sorry to read this. My experience thus far in Singapore and Beijing is more akin to winnowing, but reports from the US make it sound like so much of the grain is lost along with the chaff.
Click to expand...

Here, it is everyone. February was our best month in the last two years, maybe ever, I didn't go back any further. EVERYONE here is hosed, from Beard winners and steak houses to spots like ours. Some folks can pivot to take out. We looked at the numbers and thought about it and decided that wasn't going to work for us. I hope it works for other folks. We decided to protect the little capital we had left in the hopes of re-opening after a return to whatever the new normal will be. Our landlord has offered rent abatement that will help.

Again, I will be OK. My real concern is for our employees and my hope is that they can quickly get unemployment benefits and will get direct stimulus checks. In the back of my mind, I have a gnawing feeling that McConnell and the Republicans will do something evil in that bill. They always seem to choose evil.
Click to expand...

I foolishly thought the R's where malevolent and incompetent; now I realize they are just malevolent.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
Sorry to read this. My experience thus far in Singapore and Beijing is more akin to winnowing, but reports from the US make it sound like so much of the grain is lost along with the chaff.
Click to expand...

Preliminary US data from Open Table and Black Box shows reservations and full service restaurant traffic down 30-65% in many major cities, and that was a week ago.
 
this seems meaningless, as some major cities have a total ban on restaurant dining and others don't. there's just no way to for extrapolate from this to what is happening in cities that still have open restaurants.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
this seems meaningless, as some major cities have a total ban on restaurant dining and others don't. there's just no way to for extrapolate from this to what is happening in cities that still have open restaurants.
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This was data from the week before most cities put in a ban. It suffers from whatever considerable bias the Black Box Intelligence sample and the Open Table universe carry, but it's not meaningless. Some more details here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...rd-even-in-states-that-havent-shut-them-down/

Of course, restaurant shutdown means 100% drop in on-premise wine sales less any amount restaurants are able to sell via pickup or delivery. And some subsections, such as cruises, airlines, banquet facilities, are practically vaporized with or without official shutdown.

For context, on-premise constitutes about 17-18% of wine sales in the U.S. [Added later: that's sales volume, not $/revenue]
 
Restaurant workers certainly taking it on the chin. Pretty much all hospitality, travel, and services. Though the times be dark, it's not like people won't need these same services when the economy recovers from the virus outbreak. But surely the scene will look much different a year from now. My heart goes out to these people.
 
So, this is pretty much the state of things. 75% of independent restaurants will never re-open. We hope to be one of them.

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www.nytimes.com

The only issue I have is with the person at the end. That feel good story doesn't resonate with me and puts an unrealistic spin on the bleak outlook. In order for the right action to be taken, people need to come to terms with what this means for the service industry, which pretty much is the real US economy now.
 
This will be either the end of a certain focus on financial power or the end of alternative artisan ways of doing things.
A 1984 world where safety is the only concern or going back to real humanist values.

If Rue Clair can't make it, I won't make it. And it will be the kingdom of industrial food and wines (and culture...) made by big international corporate companies.

For me it is a 50/50 gamble. I will do my share for my family, friends and values.
Beyond the fucking virus, it is time to enter resistance against the lowest instincts of the human kind and their political expression.
 
originally posted by Brézème:
Beyond the fucking virus, it is time to enter resistance against the lowest instincts of the human kind and their political expression.
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Amen.

The NYTimes had an article -- yesterday or today? -- about a group of know-nothings in New Orleans who pooh-poohed the pandemic until one of them fell ill. Apparently, they've now shut up about it but I think a tiger doesn't change its stripes.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Brézème:
Beyond the fucking virus, it is time to enter resistance against the lowest instincts of the human kind and their political expression.
Click to expand...
Amen.

The NYTimes had an article -- yesterday or today? -- about a group of know-nothings in New Orleans who pooh-poohed the pandemic until one of them fell ill. Apparently, they've now shut up about it but I think a tiger doesn't change its stripes.
Click to expand...

I think the target was a little higher than a few random Brohas on Bienville.
 
originally posted by Tristan Welles:
I think the target was a little higher than a few random Brohas on Bienville.
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I never said it wasn't.

This is the time to remake US society in a modern form like the rest of the civilized parts of the planet: all citizens get education, shelter, and health care from the collectively-managed resources; corporations pay their fair share to maintain the society that supports them; immigrants have a reasonable path to citizenship; the right to vote is universal and not actively denied; political boundaries are drawn to match natural boundaries; environmental and technological policy are configured with respect to the underlying science of the appropriate field; propagandists and hate-mongers are ostracized; and a million other noble ideals.

My point in mentioning the New Orleans fools is that they are fools and, though they die from a plague that Great Leader says does not exist, they neither repudiate his kind nor imagine themselves ill-used on other topics, too. They will exhale their last breath believing it is right to put children in cages, force raped women to carry a psychopath's child, and deny everything they possibly can deny to people with dark skin.

Clear now?
 
Would love to have a discussion around this.

After considerable thought and donating to over 25 gofundme efforts, buying gift cards, buying wine and doing take out I think restaurants are going about this the wrong way.

If you look at most of the gofundme accounts they are all stuck at around 10-20% of their goals and it appears that at 100% of their goal they would give their staffs maybe 4 weeks of pay.

I think restaurants need to think longer-term about survival. What would be better 4 weeks of pay or a job in 3 months? I ask this with all due respect?

We are in a liquidity crisis - restaurants / small business should immediately stop paying all bills. They should be focusing 100% of their time doing two things, 1.) trying to advance the discussion around government aid and 2.) negotiating with their creditors. And wherever possible they should do this together to increase leverage.
 
originally posted by Robert Dentice:

Would love to have a discussion around this.

After considerable thought and donating to over 25 gofundme efforts, buying gift cards, buying wine and doing take out I think restaurants are going about this the wrong way.

If you look at most of the gofundme accounts they are all stuck at around 10-20% of their goals and it appears that at 100% of their goal they would give their staffs maybe 4 weeks of pay.

I think restaurants need to think longer-term about survival. What would be better 4 weeks of pay or a job in 3 months? I ask this with all due respect?

We are in a liquidity crisis - restaurants / small business should immediately stop paying all bills. They should be focusing 100% of their time doing two things, 1.) trying to advance the discussion around government aid and 2.) negotiating with their creditors. And wherever possible they should do this together to increase leverage.
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The latter was our approach to conserve whatever cash we have left (I will need to provide capital to re-open and I'm trying to figure out what my appetite for this is) and to stop paying bills (except to our local providers) and to either negotiate or stop services (e.g. internet, booking system). Our landlord offered rent abatement until we can re-open but I think we'll need a rent reduction for the longer term.

What would really be great would be open source booking and payment systems (combined would be ideal, but separate is fine). This can't be something hard to do. I once spoke to an Apple exec about getting into this game and he said they looked at it and there wasn't enough money in it. It's fairly low hanging fruit from a programming perspective. It would also help if it didn't have a bunch of irrelevant bells and whistles so that it could operate on low priced internet service.

I've wanted to dispense with the tipping mode for a while and would like to have as much of my staff as possible on wages. I haven't done that because I was waiting for local industry leaders to do that but this (hopefully temporary) shutdown will give us a chance to re-organize a bit and think through alternate models.

I don't have a lot of time to organize around government aid since I've got the girls at home now and the trials I am running are rushing to adapt to COVID-19.

We have to have an economy that does more than just vacuum wealth upwards.
 
originally posted by Brézème:
This will be either the end of a certain focus on financial power or the end of alternative artisan ways of doing things.
A 1984 world where safety is the only concern or going back to real humanist values.

If Rue Clair can't make it, I won't make it. And it will be the kingdom of industrial food and wines (and culture...) made by big international corporate companies.

For me it is a 50/50 gamble. I will do my share for my family, friends and values.
Beyond the fucking virus, it is time to enter resistance against the lowest instincts of the human kind and their political expression.
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree. When we re-open, I'd like to run even more artisinal. Going to try to figure that out. It won't be easy to do that and maintain a profitable cost structure.
 
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