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From QR code menus, to outdoor seating, delivery, and inflation, it’s safe to say that the pandemic has completely revitalized the restaurant business — and those same practices are still being used today, in December 2023.
The pandemic is not just an event of the past. While its impact has been a net positive for some restaurants, it has mostly negatively impacted others. The pandemic led to some restaurants permanently closing, others remaining open and successful, and others that recently opened and are trying to make it in the new wave of the restaurant industry, while they can.
Double Zero, a plant-based pizza restaurant located in the East Village on 65 Second Ave, opened in February 2016 and has stayed open throughout the pandemic until now. Double Zero is still successful today, but less so than it was pre-pandemic.
“Our restaurant is not flourishing, but it’s doing well enough to keep the lights on and keep moving,” Terence O’Brien, the pizzeria’s manager, said.
What contributed to the restaurant’s functional success, and kept its doors open, was delivery. “I certainly saw that change in this restaurant before and after the pandemic. Beforehand, it was maybe a couple orders per night, and now it can be upwards of 30 delivery orders per night,” O’Brien said. “Some nights there will be as many delivery orders as there are people dining in the restaurant.”
Delivery has been another opportunity to make extra money. “When I worked at restaurants beforehand, restaurants would have one delivery guy,” O’Brien said. “Now we have five different apps running. It can be just a constant stream of people.”
And, as O’Brien puts it, the money spent to invest in those apps is worth it. “Platforms like UberEats and GrubHub take an overhead charge, but it certainly still helps,” O’Brien said. “It helps to have that extra income coming in.” In the same vein, outdoor seating has its own benefits. “On the weekends, we can open into the bus lane, which doubles the size of the restaurant,” O’Brien said. “We’re a pretty small restaurant, but if you open into the bus lane, we serve twice as many people.”
But O’Brien says that there is no one single reason for the success of the business after the pandemic — rather, it comes down to luck. “We were lucky that people kept coming to this restaurant,” O’Brien said. “We have a lot of repeat customers. A lot of people in our area are ordering vegan take-out.”
To O’Brien, that last element is important: people are more attracted to eating vegan now. “I think the style of food helps. Vegan food is popular. It’s kind of like, you can have pizza, and it’s healthy at the same time in some ways,” O’Brien said.
However, a decline in nightlife has cost Double Zero customers. “It seems like nightlife never came back to what it was [before]. Our restaurant used to stay open two hours later. We were open until 1 a.m,” O’Brien said. “And we never extended our hours late into the evening again. We stay open late coming in at 11 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday, but we don’t really get a rush at 1 a.m. like we did before — that’s a big difference.”
Like Double Zero, Saigon Shack, a Vietnamese restaurant in Greenwich Village located at 114 MacDougal Street that has been open since November of 2010, has also benefited from outdoor seating and delivery. However, they are as successful today as they were pre-pandemic. “There is more delivery now than there ever was,” manager Louisa Chen said. As soon as you walk into the restaurant, there are at least two GrubHub or UberEats drivers at the door ready to pick up an order — and, the place is packed every day. “UberEats charges 30%, but it’s worth it.”
Chen told me that the outdoor seating has only brought more business. What didn’t help the business, however, was the inventory spike. “We try to buy ingredients at the lowest price possible, so that we can stay affordable for our clients on our menu,” Chen said. “We made sure to keep prices the same on the menu to not scare away customers, even though we pay that 30% increase in ingredient prices after the pandemic.”
So, Chen didn’t let inflation affect the prices of the items on the menu. Since there still are a good amount of clients coming to the restaurant as they had pre-pandemic, inflation didn’t affect the business earnings much.
Chen admits that there are less people dining in than there was before the pandemic, which was not the best for customers, since the vibe is a big part Saigon Shack’s appeal.
But some unique fast-food restaurants, also on MacDougal Street, aren’t struggling with dining in, as most of their clients take their food to go, which became more of an advantage for them post-pandemic.
One of those fast-food restaurants is Mighty Bowl, which serves fresh Asian bowls in Greenwich Village, and is located on 120 MacDougal Street. They have been open since March 2016. Like Double Zero, Mighty Bowl is successful today, but not as successful as they were pre-pandemic. The main challenge they struggled most with was inflation to keep the restaurant running.
“Before it was 100% busy, now it’s only 60-70% busy,” the manager of Mighty Bowl, Dennis Mendoza, said.
The ingredients that are bought from overseas have increased, as have the prices on the menu as well. “Especially the bowls that are from China, Mexico, Canada and California have been raised by $1,” Mendoza said. “To compensate, we also raised our menu prices by $1.”
Due to this, one of their most popular bowls was discontinued. “It was a Poke bowl with salmon and tuna – it was too expensive to keep,” Mendoza said. “Our chicken and steak bowls are also expensive, but not as much as the Poke bowl.”
Denino’s, which is an landmark Italian restaurant (having been a New York staple since it opened in 1937) in Greenwich Village located at 93 MacDougal Street, faced its own problems in the aftermath of the pandemic: real estate concerns, coupled with inflation. “Before the pandemic, I had about 20 seats outside, with no guidelines on how to create anything in the street,” Joe Castellano, Denino’s manager, said. “So, we did that ourselves. On top of that, the city is still asking for the same amount of rent when they were only allowing us to use 25% of capacity. Unfortunately, it gets passed onto customers. It gets to the point where I can’t charge customers that much more because I feel horrible about it to begin with.”
Castellano doesn’t know what to do about inflation. “I buy my food from U.S. Foods. Now, because of inflation, if I paid$12 then, I’m paying $24 [for the same food] now. That’s half my profit margin. I’m not going to lose that. So, what am I going to do? Every year the prices get updated. Back in 2019, I charged $21 for a cheese pie. I think I am up to $26 now – that’s ridiculous.”
Castellano doesn’t see inflation getting better, and says he will close the restaurant if it continues. “It keeps snowballing and gets worse and worse and worse,” he said. “I don’t see it getting better anytime soon. It’s going to depend on what happens to real estate in the city. If the building comes back to us, and says we want ‘X’ amount of dollars because they are going to increase us by 10% and then 3% every year – I’m going to close the door.”
Delivery prices can get negotiated, though. “With GrubHub, they started taking 20%, now they take 12% with their own driver. That’s worth it,” Castellano said.
Berlin Döner, a middle eastern fast-food restaurant in Greenwich Village located at 104 MacDougal Street, opened around the same time as Denino’s, and is one of the few restaurants on MacDougal Street that remained open and successful. They are still working to become more successful, however.
Just like Mighty Bowl, but perhaps not as bad as experienced by Denino’s, Berlin Döner claims inflation to be their biggest challenge.
“The prices for lamb, chicken, and steak went up by 2-3% after the pandemic,” the manager of Berlin Döner, Adnan Ahmed, said. “What used to be $1.75 per pound for chicken went up to $2.85, to $4. As a result, we also raised our prices on the menu by $1 or $1.50.”
Like Mighty Bowl, the to-go menu was their biggest success.
Pappas, the Greenwich Village Greek restaurant located at 103 MacDougal Street, opened roughly eight months ago — well after the pandemic — and is still gaining popularity, all without adapting to some of the changes brought about by the pandemic, like delivery and outdoor seating.
“Right now, everything is changing,” Pappas’s manager, Michael Gabriel, said. “Delivery and outdoor seating is not a disadvantage, if you know what to do.”
Inflation has increased the price of steaks and lamb chops, but Gabriel has kept his menu prices the same. “Lamb chops are $16 per pound. It used to be $11.99 or $12 per pound,” Gabriel said. “After the pandemic, you couldn’t find most of these products. Now you can find them, but they are more expensive.”
Gabriel’s version of success at a time like this comes down to vibe and food. “People still want to have a nice experience,” he said. “They want to have a nice dinner, be happy, and party, while enjoying healthy food. I provide Mediterranean food, and I believe that is healthy.”
Although Gabriel points to some highlights that keep his restaurant standing, he notes that the post-pandemic inflation will have its negative consequences looking ahead. “It’s going to be bad for everyone,” he said.
Aura Bar and Kitchen, a restaurant that, like Pappas, also recently opened, is located at 111 1st Avenue in the East Village. Five months after opening, they have also found success without adapting to many of the post-pandemic dining measures.
“Not every restaurant that’s open is successful,” the manager of Aura Bar and Kitchen, Gesse Ballan, said. “New people and groups are coming to town thinking they can do better than what other people are doing, so they open restaurants.”
Ballan brings up the reality that consumer spending has changed after the pandemic. “It’s hard to open a restaurant when rich people are spending their money elsewhere,” he said. “Most young people spend their money on their rent, and then they barely have money left over to eat, so they go to happy hour to have fun. But happy hour doesn’t help the business, only the consumer.”
To Ballan, third-party apps aren’t worth it. “If it means I have to overprice my menu to compensate, no thanks.”
Meanwhile, Nudibranch, a Korean-Spanish food pop-up located at 125 1st Avenue in the East Village which opened in February 2020, has a much more optimistic look at the future of the restaurant industry.
Nudibranch chef/owner Jeff Kim got laid off from his line cooking job because restaurants were closing during the pandemic, but he doesn’t see the restaurant business being over any time soon.
“There are restaurants that opened up in the past year to incredible success,” he said. “I think dining habits have changed, and I don’t think that is stopping people from opening new places. New York City is a very competitive market, it’s just a matter of people being able to adapt to it.”
Kim said that the pandemic brought awareness to sustainability — not only regarding the food industry, but also mental health stability, pointing to positive changes made in reaction to the pandemic. “I think it’s about mental health stability for our team here,” Kim said. “We want to make sure that people are able to come to work with a clear mind. If there are issues that they are dealing with, we want to be able to help them. We offer health insurance for our team that wants it. We make sure everyone is scheduled so they are not overworked, and that there is work/life balance.”
Kim has faith in the direction the restaurant business is going. “We’re still operating, which means we are doing something right,” Kim said. “I wake up every morning and I am happy to come to work – that to me is a success.”
Maestro Pasta, an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village located on 102 MacDougal Street, which opened in the winter of 2018, is still running smoothly post-pandemic. But he points to some problems from the pandemic that surfaced over the years. “Inflation is a problem, but it’s also New York City, so you can charge high prices and compensate for that,” the manager of Maestro Pasta, Alessandro Morani, said. “We used to be able to get away with that, but after the pandemic, consumer spending is not as good as before. Because of the economy right now, we have high interest rates. They kind of suffocate consumer spending.”
Consumers want to save money — and so do restaurant owners. “The first thing people cut [out of their personal expenses] are restaurants,” Morani said. “And the cost of employees is too high. I cannot believe someone cannot live off $15 an hour. So, I had to lay off a worker. People are getting ready for a recession. And people are changing their mindsets. Now, going out for dinner and spending $100 each – maybe they think about it, while before, who cares, I’m going to swipe my credit card, and we’re going to talk about it next month. They are more aware of how they spend money.”
Less clients is a problem for Morani. He also changed his prices because of inflation. “The ingredients for inflation went up by 35%,” he said. “If you order $1 worth of food, now it goes to $1.35. The prices on the menu went up by $5 for a few things.”
Morani agrees with Ballan that third-party apps aren’t worth it. “Many companies cut their fee,” he said. “Before the fees were more than 30%. If you sell for $100, you get $70 and you are responsible for the whole sales tax.”
The location of the restaurant is also a concern among customers after the pandemic, according to Morani. “Unfortunately, in my case, after the protests, the defunding of the police has brought instability,” Morani said. “Many people going out in a neighborhood like Greenwich Village have a perception of crime. I wish there were more NYPD around. Many of them retired after the pandemic because of ‘defunding the police,’ when they should be funded.”
Outdoor seating has been a benefit for many restaurants, and Morani can see the benefit from not being able to have it. “Because we have a bike lane, I couldn’t build anything over there. That’s lost revenue. My customers will call for outdoor seating,” Morani said. “While all the restaurants on the other side of MacDougal Street all have sheds, that helped them out way more. The best restaurants are the ones that have an outdoor area. They did not lose customers because of that. I always focused on indoors, but outdoor helps.”
Looking to the future of the restaurant business in 2024, Morani looks up to the ceiling, unsure. Then he says, “Everything is going to depend on the election. We need interest rates to go down.”
The impact of the pandemic on the restaurant business has been mostly detrimental to restaurants, to say the least, with special regard to inflation. But the strategies restaurants have done to keep their businesses afloat might be what to expect in the kind of restaurants we’ll have in the future.