Can small Illinois restaurants survive 10 weeks of being closed because of coronavirus?
It doesn’t matter if you serve Italian or Mexican, burgers or steaks, cold beer or fancy cocktails.
If you own a small restaurant or bar in Illinois, it’s likely that you’ve been stressed out since March 17, when Gov. J.B. Pritzker put a temporary halt to dine-in services due to the coronavirus pandemic. You may be even be wondering if your business can survive.
“I don’t know any small business that can be down for this length of time and be able to pull out of it, and restaurants run on such a low profit margin to begin with,” said Brenda Whitaker, owner of two restaurants and a coffee shop that serves food in Granite City.
“If other people have hundreds of thousands of dollars in reserve, then bravo to them. Obviously, I’m not doing something right. How long are people going to allow me to peck away at bills with no income coming in? At some point, someone’s going to pull the trigger and start disconnecting stuff. Do I hope that I can hang on? Absolutely. I just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Metro-east restaurant owners have reacted to COVID-19 restrictions in different ways, sizing up their circumstances and, in many cases, making educated guesses.
Some immediately closed their doors after Pritzker’s announcement, thinking they would come back strong when society returned to “normal.” But six weeks later, that hasn’t happened, and the governor just extended a stay-at-home order through May 30.
Other restaurants continue to operate with carryouts, curbside pickup or delivery, a strategy that seems to work best for those with easily transported food, such as pizza, or drive-thru windows.
Still others tried curbside pickup before concluding it wasn’t worth the effort. Whitaker falls into that category. She kept her Downtown Diner open for five days, taking orders by phone and walking them out to customers in vehicles.
“We were losing money, so we stopped doing it,” she said. “ I can’t stay open and lose money.”
Drive-thru makes a difference
McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and other national fast-food chains easily converted to drive-thru-only service because they already were doing much of their business that way.
Al Hicks, owner of Hicks Bar-B-Que Co. in Belleville, credits his drive-thru window for keeping him afloat the past six weeks. His biggest problem now is a staff shortage. Some employees aren’t coming to work out of concern they’ll be exposed to coronavirus. Family members are handling most duties, and it takes more time to prepare pickup orders than dine-in meals.
“Everybody is in a hurry at the drive-thru,” Hicks said. “They want to get it quick, and it’s not unusual for us to have $100, $200, $250 orders. People order family dinners and pounds of meat and quarts of sides, and you have to put everything together.”
Hicks is now operating with shortened hours, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m Thursday through Sunday.
Another factor that works in the restaurant’s favor, Hicks said, is that it isn’t dependent on alcohol sales or gaming like many places, where socializing also is part of the draw. His customers show up for the apple-wood-smoked pork, beef, chicken and turkey.
“My fear is, a lot of our friends won’t be reopening (after the pandemic ends),” Hicks said. “It’s scary.”
Employees volunteer their time
Shilulu Brown and her family have been operating Valentine’s Restaurant in Freeburg for 44 years, but they’ve never faced anything like the coronavirus.
Brown and her daughter, Lani Parker, are offering curbside pickup from 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, thanks to a couple of longtime employees who are volunteering their time. Most customers order steak dinners or cheeseburgers.
“You have to pack it all,” said Brown, noting this is new territory for the old-school, sit-down restaurant. “That’s the hardest part. If they want the dressing on (salads), we put it on. If they don’t, we put it in a little container. We have our full menu, except we don’t serve dessert. There weren’t too many dessert orders at first, so we had desserts going to waste.”
Whitaker, Hicks, Brown and Parker all applied for government assistance, including Paycheck Protection Program loans through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, but none got approved during the first phase of funding.
Millpond Brewing & Incubator in Millstadt has managed to stay open by canning its beer, taking online orders and serving customers through an open garage door. Hours are 3 to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.
Owner Bryan Schubert doesn’t have a canning machine, so employees fill and seal cans manually.
“It’s very labor-intensive,” he said. “But outside of doing a few growlers now and then, it’s the best way to continue selling our beer. ... All things considered, we’re doing fine. It’s not great, but it’s not awful, either. It’s really a matter of perspective at this point.”
COVID-19 timing was particularly bad for Schubert, who opened the brewery in October after a lengthy and expensive renovation of a former Shell gas station, built in 1943.
“I was joking the other day with someone, and I said, ‘If I had known that I was going to be selling package beer, I would have just put the brewery in my parents’ shed,’” he said.
Restaurants plan reopenings
Cleveland-Heath in Edwardsville has learned to be flexible since Pritzker’s announcement. It stayed open five days for curbside pickup, then closed, despite a promising increase in orders each day, said Keith McGinness, who owns the restaurant and bar with his wife, Kari.
“I didn’t want to put my staff in danger,” he said. “And for society, for the public in general, I just didn’t feel it was the right thing.”
The McGinnesses have spent the past week building an operation that’s better suited for safe and efficient curbside pickup with plans to reopen Monday. A limited menu will include a couple of daily specials, such as fried chicken or pork loin, served family-style with mashed potatoes, veggies and other sides. Hours will be 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
The McGinnesses feel lucky that they were approved for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, allowing them to pay employees for the past two weeks.
The two couples who own Sloan’s Pub House in Collinsville also plan to reopen for carryouts and delivery in mid-May. They closed the restaurant and bar April 12, worried that they were putting employee health at risk just to “tread water” financially, said co-owner Kenny Sloan.
All proceeds from sales on the last day, April 11, went to an Employee Assistance Fund. Sloan’s applied for a Paycheck Protection Program loan but hasn’t been approved.
Some small business owners are frustrated by COVID-19 restrictions that seem inconsistent, Sloan said. “We understand that some businesses are essential, but we’re forced to do carryout and delivery. Why aren’t the big box stores?
“We almost feel like restaurants are cleaner than grocery stores. You pick up a loaf of bread or something, and you think, ‘No, I don’t want that,’ and you put it back and then the next person touches it and so on. We’re wearing gloves all the time and washing our hands and wiping down tables between customers.”
Federal loan program is tricky
Peel Wood Fired Pizza, which has locations in Edwardsville, O’Fallon and Clayton, Missouri, was approved for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, but utilizing it has been tricky, said co-owner Brandon Case.
Loans are supposed to be forgiven if small businesses use them for designated expenses, including payroll, during the pandemic. Case and his partner, Patrick Thirion, have encountered the problem of employees choosing not to return to work because they’re getting unemployment benefits while staying home. Peel normally employs about 225 people.
All three locations are offering curbside pickup and delivery from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. That’s despite the owners’ longstanding preference that customers enjoy their pizza on site, fresh from the oven.
“We never, ever, ever, ever, ever thought that we would see an insulated pizza-delivery box in our restaurants,” Case said. “It took a lot of swallowing and deep breaths for us to accept it. That’s not something that our brand does.”
Plans for Peel in Edwardsville to move into a new development on Illinois 157, near its intersection with Esic Drive, has been delayed, but not scrapped, Case said.
Whitaker was in the process of moving one of her restaurants, The Garden Gate Tea Room, to a new location when the coronavirus hit. She also owns Novel Idea Bookstore & More, which includes a coffee shop. Garden Gate has been operating for 20 years.
“I’m not in a good headspace right now, and I’m sure no one else (in the restaurant industry) is, either,” Whitaker said. “If you lose your business because of something you’ve done, that’s one thing. But to lose a business over something that you have absolutely no control over, it’s gut-wrenching.”
Taking time off for renovations
Scott Schmelzel, owner of Big Daddy’s 618 in Belleville, has taken a completely different path than most small businesses during the pandemic. He closed March 17 and almost immediately started renovating the restaurant and bar, which now has a window display with a running total of days in the shutdown. It’s become a popular photo backdrop for passersby.
Schmelzel knew he couldn’t be successful with a carryout-only operation.
“Big Daddy’s is more of an event space and a party place,” he said. “We could sell food to go, but quite honestly, with the margins and labor rate, cost of goods and operating expenses ... Nobody (who owns a bar) makes money on food. We have to have the liquor business and the gaming business to be operable.”
In the past six weeks, Schmelzel and three employees have refinished hardwood floors, painted walls mint green and mocha brown, installed a new bar with USB charging stations and purse hooks, updated bathrooms and made other changes.
Schmelzel has spent about $5,000, but he saved more than double that amount by not paying contractors, he said. Next on his agenda is refurbishing the patio.
“These three employees are volunteering their time to make this a better place,” Schmelzel said. “They need this job. They make good money at this job. They’re excited about us returning back to work, and they love Belleville. They’re all on board supporting local.”
More than 20 restaurants are listed on the U Speak Belleville! website, which web developer Rick Ortiz created several years ago to promote the city as a good place to live, work and play.
Ortiz added a page for restaurants last month to help them advertise their carryout and delivery services in a central location that’s easy to access. Owners can fill out an online form and be added for free. Customers reach the page by typing in “bellevillefood.com.”
“I just wanted to help,” Ortiz said. “I live downtown, and when all this ends, I want to still have the same choices to go to. I don’t want to see anything close.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 10:03 AM.
