Meet the new dining room. COVID-19 pushes restaurants onto sidewalks and into streets.
When restaurants in North Carolina were first able to reopen at the end of May, the owners of Irregardless Cafe in Raleigh surveyed diners, asking when they might feel comfortable eating out in a restaurant.
Answers ranged from within a month to half a year, but the majority — 40% of 200 responses — said they wouldn’t have a meal out until there’s a vaccine for the coronavirus.
“Our plan from the beginning is we wouldn’t open until Phase 3,” said Lee Robinson, who took over the beloved Raleigh restaurant earlier this year with co-owner David Meeker. “Then it became obvious that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
Restaurants that have survived the four-plus months of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to face an uncertain and difficult road ahead. In North Carolina, dining rooms can operate at half-capacity, but many restaurants have remained shut or have opted to stick with takeout service.
To expand the first-aid kit trying to keep restaurants alive, some cities have offered expanding outdoor seating areas into public spaces, putting tables on sidewalks or street parking spaces or events in nearby lots.
Irregardless was one of the first in Raleigh to apply and get the city’s approval for a parklet — a sidewalk extention into the street.
“I’m in this business, and I don’t want to eat in a restaurant right now,” Robinson said. “But I’m happy to eat outside.”
So far, 27 restaurants in Raleigh have applied to expand their seating outdoors. The town of Apex also approved expanded seating on sidewalks and streets, as have Chapel Hill and Durham.
Last week, Chapel Hill started shutting down two lanes of downtown’s main thoroughfare of Franklin Street, The News & Observer reported. Doing so gives pedestrians on narrow sidewalks more space in an era of social distancing and gives restaurants a chance to expand outdoor dining into the street.
The lanes will be closed until at least mid-September with officials reviewing the strategy this fall.
Currently, outdoor dining is the only way to eat at Irregardless, where Robinson said the restaurant set up 11 tables about a month ago. The parklet juts into the street, with strings of lights and some landscaping.
The response has been mixed, Robinson said, but there’s still joy in seeing people return to the restaurant.
“The reason we’re in hospitality is to help people,” Robinson said. “It feels good to see people again.”
MOFU Shoppe on Blount Street also set up new outdoor seating, using extra tables from the dining room with plans to order more. The restaurant is betting on outdoor dining to figure prominently for months, co-owner Sunny Lin said.
“From what we can tell, people are very wary of coming in to eat,” Lin said. “We’ve really bolstered out takeout, but still feel that hesitancy to come in.”
Like a lot of downtown restaurants, MOFU Shoppe relies on the lunch breaks and after-work dinners of thousands working in the city. With many offices having employees work from home, keeping them from after-hours meals, downtown residents are now the main market. Lin said many still aren’t comfortable eating indoors.
“Our patrons now are local people who can get out or walk, residents of downtown Raleigh, and many are hesitant to come and dine in,” Lin said. “We respect that.”
Adding visibility
The outdoor tables some restaurants have set up aim simply to bring in more business during this long struggle for the industry. But as much as giving diners a table to eat outdoors, owners say the added seating is a bright “open” sign of sorts, a flare shot up from a stranded ship saying, “Here we are, come and find us.”
“It’s visibility, honestly,” Robinson said. “It’s a nice big sign that says you’re open every day. It shows you’re still alive here and still in the fight.”
In Durham, only four restaurants have applied so far for the permits for outdoor seating, with approvals granted to COPA and Luna Rotisserie and Empanadas with pending reviews for Mateo and Viceroy.
COPA built a parklet out of a few parking spaces in front of the restaurant. The Cuban spot also serves diners inside, but by reservation only. Elizabeth Turnbull, who co-owns the restaurant with husband, Robert Matos, said the outdoor seats seem to have boosted sales overall. She said hopes are higher for the late summer and fall, when outdoor dining may be more attractive beyond the reach of soaring July temperatures.
“The number of people choosing to dine inside has also increased,” Turnbull said. “There’s some charm to it.”
Like many others, COPA has adapted quickly and often to changing conditions and guidelines for restaurants. Turnbull said the city’s permit requirements, including scale drawings of proposed parklets and tables, may be the reason there are currently so few applications.
“It’s exhausting and draining, but we try to stay positive,” Turnbull said. “Restaurant people tend to be creative by nature. There’s an excitement in creating something new. But you have to do these things quickly, we don’t have the luxury of time. We have to be nimble. ... It’s a lot of stuff to pull together. In culinary school they don’t teach to-scale drawing.”
Now, as Month Four becomes Month Five of the pandemic, Robinson described what restaurants face as something of a siege. But he said he’s planning for the long-term, and Irregardless will be there on the other side.
“You have to budget today like you’re not going to be open until March,” Robinson said. “It’s really just playing the long game.”
