Wednesday afternoon Governor Walz is set to announce what his office calls a “loosening of restrictions” around indoor dining and “other settings.” One local restaurateur says he’s hopeful, but remains concerned about the hospitality industry as a whole.
Brian Ingram, owner of Purpose Driven Restaurants including The Gnome, Hope Breakfast Bar and Woodfire Cantina, was in the hospital upon the birth of his newborn baby when he had to start making phone calls to employees, informing them that they were being laid off.
Indoor dining has been prohibited since Nov. 20 as the state tried to tamp down a November surge of cases and get control of rising hospitalization and death rates.
Not only was making those phone calls before the holiday season “especially brutal,” Ingram said this many months into the pandemic, his business did not have the resources to assist workers that it otherwise would have.
“There was lots of talk about this help that was coming and how employment would be more, but for most my staff, their unemployment checks are $130 a week,” Ingram said. “I think the highest I’ve seen is over $200 and nobody can pay their bills so that’s been really, really difficult on the last go-round.”
Ingram guesses it will be a 25 percent capacity indoors, though no details have been confirmed or released from Walz’s office. Ingram called 25 percent “still very much a losing proposition,” and said he and other restaurateurs are hoping for 50 percent. He’s not sure if employees will want to return at 25 percent.
“If you’re a server and you’re working in a restaurant at 25 percent capacity are you only going to make $20 a day in tips, $30 a day in tips? How do you pay your bills on that?” Ingram said.
Ingram laid off 150 people in the last shutdown, he said. Opening up indoor dining means he can bring some employees back but he knows the difficult times will continue for local restaurants.
“There are so many restaurants for sure that have just been hanging on,” Ingram said. “If it really is 25 percent, I think that will be the final nail in the coffin for a lot of restaurateurs that are frankly just trying to make it though.
“I think so many of us were hoping that the holidays, we were going to make some money for the restaurants to carry us through January and February which are always sort of brutal on Minnesota restaurants anyways. We lost that, and now you’re going into typical the two worst months for restaurants and you’re only at 25 percent capacity. It’s a recipe for disaster for sure.”
Ingram said the biggest concern he hears from restaurateurs is that the loosened restrictions will be short lived and they’ll have to close up again, further disrupting people’s lives. And they’re right to feel uncertainty. The state has significantly lowered the infection and hospitalization rate since the November surge, but the effects of Christmas and New Years gatherings remain to be seen. The state identified indoor dining as places where people congregate for long periods without masks.
Ingram said restaurant owners also want more notice leading up to announcements. In November, Ingram was left with nearly $40,000 worth of food inventory ordered the week prior to Walz’s announcement. He’s been holding a weekly food pantry for hospitality workers and the demand is high. In fact, he said Tuesday an estimated 1,000 people dealing with food insecurity or needing to use their money for other bills lined up. It will continue even when indoor dining reopens.
There are ways for residents to help. Ingram teamed up with other local chefs including David Fhima for a calendar with 12 recipes for each month. One hundred percent of the proceeds are going to hospitality workers in $400 to $500 checks. Tuesday Ingram said they cut their first check from the initial $40,000 in sales.
Restaurant owners share not just concern for their workers, but for the Twin Cities industry.
“All of our biggest fears are that we’re going to be left with a bunch of national chains and none of these local restaurants that tell the stories of their communities and we just hope they can make it to the other side,” Ingram said.
Workers who need aid can apply, or you can buy a calendar at GiveHopeMN.org.