The Future of Restaurants

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
The powers that be seem to think that restaurants can survive as take-out only or with curtailed seating. But if "Ghost Kitchens" are failing - and they have eliminated not only the dining areas, but also the huge expense of visible frontage - how are places that have full Real Estate freight going to pay for it?


Smart-kitchen startup Kitopi lays off 124 NYC employees
Pandemic has “led to difficult decisions,” a spokesperson said

Kitopi, a startup that provides kitchen and delivery services to restaurants, has laid off 124 employees in New York — just months after raising $60 million to expand its U.S. operations.

In a notice published with the state this week, the company blamed “unforeseeable business circumstances” caused by the coronavirus for its decision to cut staff.

A spokesperson told Commercial Observer the company had taken “measures to ensure the overall sustainability of our business,” adding that the pandemic had “led to difficult decisions.”
Founded in Dubai in 2017, Kitopi provides “ghost kitchens” — privately managed cooking spaces and staff — that can deliver for restaurants unable to keep up with the demands of food delivery.

In addition to its New York kitchens, the first of which was opened last November in Brooklyn, the company has 30 other kitchens in London and Dubai. Kitopi’s latest funding round announced in early February brought its total capital raised to $89 million, and was led by Knollwood and Lumia Capital. It also attracted investments from CE Ventures, GIC, Rise Capital, Reshape, Global Ventures and Wilshire Lane Partners
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
No One Knows How Many Restaurants Have Closed in New York City
Close to 1,000 NYC restaurants and bars have permanently closed since March, but more accurate documentation of the pandemic’s toll could take months or years
Five months into the pandemic, few things are certain for restaurants and bars in New York City, where state regulations are announced over Twitter and updates to dining guidelines can come with less than 24 hours’ notice. In interviews with state leaders, small-business owners, and local reporters, though, one thing is abundantly clear: No one knows how many restaurants have closed in New York City.
Since the start of the pandemic, Eater has documented more than 150 restaurant and bar closings. In recent weeks, there’s been a surge in the number of weekly reported closings, with close to 70 occurring in the last month alone. Yet if studies and reports on small-business closures are anything to go by, the number of documented closings constitutes a fraction of the toll the pandemic has taken on the restaurant industry so far.
In April, the New York State Restaurant Association predicted that as many as 11 percent of the state’s restaurants and bars could close by the end of that month, totaling roughly 5,500 establishments. In August, the New York Times estimated that 2,800 small businesses had closed in New York City since March 1, a third of which were restaurants and bars, according to data it gleaned from Yelp.
These estimates, while helpful, capture only part of the pandemic’s impact on the city’s hospitality industry so far, which experts say is likely much larger.

East Village Ukranian diner Odessa, which was slated to close on July 19 but stayed open
Given that there is no official city or state organization keeping track of closings in real time, it has become nearly impossible to assess the magnitude of the current turmoil for the restaurant industry. “It’s hard to get an accurate assessment right now,” says Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York State Restaurant Association. For its April survey, NYSRA received responses from more than 6,500 restaurants, but the overwhelming feedback was largely due to the temporary closures and diners’ decision to stay home in those early weeks of the pandemic.

“We were able to get a high number of responses because we were completely shut down at the time,” Fleischut says. That’s not necessarily the case right now.
The impossibility of tracking restaurant closures has also been felt by local reporters and bloggers across the city, many of whom have been at the forefront of documenting shutterings until government data becomes available. Their efforts to keep on top of closures have also been hampered in large part by the sheer volume of restaurants and bars closing.
“Lots of restaurants are quietly closing. The grates just go down. There’s no press release or announcement.”
“It is almost too much to keep up with right now,” says Mike Mishkin, editor of local blog I Love the Upper West Side, which has been tracking closures in the neighborhood since the start of the pandemic. “I’m definitely unable to get 100 percent of them.” Before the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Upper West Side editor would typically give each restaurant that closed its own short tribute. Recently, though, he had to abandon that practice as a result of seven restaurants closing in the span of a week. “There was no time to write separate pieces,” he says.

At this point in the pandemic, it’s become more difficult to find out whether a restaurant is actually closed, or whether its shutdown is only temporary, according to Mishkin. Before the pandemic, the Upper West Side editor might have visited a restaurant in person or called its owner to confirm a closure, but today he’s more likely to find boarded-up windows, disconnected phone lines, deserted social media accounts, and expired websites. “It’s gotten really hard to get in touch with owners these days,” he says. “If they’ve closed or are thinking of closing, they’re most likely not excited about communicating that.”
It’s a far more daunting task to track closings of smaller establishments, especially those with no social media presence. “Lots of restaurants are quietly closing,” says Joanne Kwong, owner of Chinatown and Chelsea Market’s historic Pearl River Mart and a member of the city’s small-business advisory council. “The [steel] grates just go down. There’s no press release or announcement.”
The process of tracking closings is further complicated by restaurants that appear to have closed but have actually relocated, rebranded, or renovated their spaces. In July, New York City mourned the loss of East Village institution Odessa, a decades-old Ukrainian diner and one of the last 24-hour restaurants in the neighborhood. Several local news publications reported on the closure, including Eater, which likened the loss to the end of an era for the old-school East Village. Only Odessa never closed.

Eleven Madison Park, which remains temporarily closed to customers at the time of writing.
Two days before the diner was expected to shutter — and a full five days after the closing was first reported — co-owner Steve Helios clarified that Odessa was only shutting down for temporary renovations, not permanently closing. “We’ll be back,” he said in an interview with Gothamist. The editor of EV Grieve attributed the misreporting to a “miscommunication among restaurant staff,” but the situation only underscored the challenges of keeping track of closings right now.

Meanwhile, restaurants like New Mexico-style cafe the Awkward Scone and casual tasting-menu spot Bouley at Home insist that they’re moving, not permanently closing.
In many cases, the owners of restaurants that appear to have permanently closed are waiting out the pandemic behind closed doors. For some, that’s because they don’t have enough space to make outdoor seating worth it, as is the case at East Village gin bar the Winslow, which only had room for four tables outside, and has decided to shut its doors intermittently. “It’s really been a daily decision on whether opening that day will cost us too much money,” says Abby DiCarlo, the general manager at the bar.
Many others are closed temporarily, waiting to hear more on long-term policy changes and more government aid before they decide whether to reopen or permanently close, according to Andrew Rigie, the executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, a group that represents thousands of restaurants in the city.

“There’s no phase five. We’ve hit the end of the road.”
A Hospitality Alliance survey earlier this month revealed that nearly 40 percent of surveyed restaurants in the city were unable to pay any rent in July. Long-term rent relief, extending the existing moratorium on evictions, and the suspension on personal liability clauses — where landlords can go after restaurateurs’ personal finances if businesses close — are among the factors owners are looking at as they weigh whether to reopen or close, Rigie says. Similar to New York City’s takeout cocktail program, those policies are temporary, and if any were allowed to expire, Rigie says that a “massive wave” of restaurant closures would likely ensue.
More closures may also come to light when New York City restaurants and bars eventually reopen for indoor dining. “If you don’t see a restaurant reopen at that point, they’re not going to reopen,” says Fleischut of the NYSRA, which may make it easier to track citywide closures.
Still, the true extent of closings may not be revealed for at least another year, says Rigie, when restaurant permits with the state health department have expired: These permits must be renewed annually, meaning the number that expire may offer one estimate of closings during the pandemic. “Unfortunately, there’s no government agency that covers closings in real time,” says Rigie. “Until we have that data, it’s going to be a slow bleed.”

Without more federal aid or long-term solutions for the beleaguered hospitality industry — including the $120 billion bill to support independent restaurants — many closures are likely in store. “With each new phase of reopening, we’ve been looking for light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s no phase five,” says Kwong of Pearl River Mart. “We’ve hit the end of the road.”
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
NYC restaurants: Give us indoor dining or we’ll sue
Mayor de Blasio hints that bars and eateries must wait for a vaccine

Restaurant owners are fed up with the ban on indoor dining and they’re ready to take action.
In a press conference Wednesday, the NYC Hospitality Alliance threatened to sue the city or state, stating that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are unlawfully discriminating against restaurants in the city.

While the rest of the state partakes in indoor dining at 50 percent of capacity, that has been postponed indefinitely in the city. Asked Tuesday when it might be allowed, de Blasio said, “The most important thing … is to get to the point where we have a vaccine and then we can really come back. But we’re going to be very, very careful.”

An effective vaccine could be months or years away, if it arrives at all. Many of the city’s 27,000 restaurants have already closed, and those owners hanging on are worried they might not survive the winter.
“All options, including all legal options, are on the table,” said Robert Bookman, the general and legislative counsel for the NYC Hospitality Alliance said during the press conference.

The warning comes two days after bowling alleys were allowed to reopen and a day after the state announced a blueprint for gyms to reopen (those in the city will have to wait until at least Sept. 2, the mayor said Tuesday). The restaurant trade group noted that the decision on fitness centers was made after thousands of gym owners filed a class-action lawsuit against Cuomo.

“We want to work collaboratively with Governor Cuomo, with Mayor de Blasio,” said Andrew Rigie, the alliance’s executive director.
Throughout the press conference, restaurant owners expressed their financial need for indoor dining, especially with winter on the horizon.

Blair Papagni, who had to shutter one of her restaurants, said she’s struggled to pay rent on her other location because of the lack of indoor dining.
“A lot of our landlords really are decent people that deserve to get paid,” Papagni said. “Unfortunately right now I can’t afford to pay rent. I really wish that I could.”

In July, 83 percent of bars and restaurants did not pay full rent and 37 percent paid no rent at all, according to a survey of 471 establishments by the trade group.
While it’s unknown how many of the city’s 27,000 restaurants in the city have closed, Rigie said that the number is in the thousands. He called the current situation a “commercial rent crisis.”

Dr. Jay Varma, a senior health adviser to the mayor, said Tuesday that restaurants present a risk because mask-wearing is limited and virus particles are not rapidly dispersed indoors. “When you look at the data really from across the world, there is no doubt, one very common setting in which infections occur — and not just individual infections, but what we call super spreading events where one person can transmit to five, 10, 15, or 20 people – and those are settings where there was indoor dining and drinking,” he said at the mayor’s press conference.
 

David Goldsmith

All Powerful Moderator
Staff member
Over 60 Percent of NY Restaurants Could Close By Next Year, Survey Says
A new survey finds that more than 60 percent of restaurants could close by 2021
As many as two-thirds of the state’s restaurants and bars could permanently close by the end of the year if they do not receive substantial government aid, according to a new survey from the New York State Restaurant Association. The survey — based on responses from 1,042 of the state’s more than 50,000 eating establishments — found that 63.6 percent of restaurateurs were “likely” or “somewhat likely” to close in the next four months. More than half of those respondents said they would be forced to close their doors before November if they do not receive some form of financial relief.

Many restaurants received loans through the Paycheck Protection Program earlier in the year, but establishments continue to close their doors as that money runs out and further financial aid still isn’t available.

Surveys like those from the NYSRA are just predictions, but they’re also some of the best measures of the pandemic’s toll on the hospitality industry right now, given that there’s no state or federal agency documenting restaurant closures in real time. Earlier this year, the NYSRA predicted that as many as 11 percent of the state’s restaurants and bars — roughly 5,500 businesses — would close by the end of April due to COVID-19. In all reality, though, experts say that number is likely much higher and will only continue to rise without a clear roadmap for indoor dining or substantial government intervention, including the $120 billion bill to support independent restaurants.
 
Top