It’s an industry with crowds at its core that, in the age of a pandemic and social distancing, will have to evolve its long-standing business model to endure.
No, we aren’t referring to whether big-time sports will still be able to attract fans, post-coronavirus. But the dilemma being faced by teams and leagues is similar to the one confronting a different, but much larger, business: restaurants, which are said to be the second-largest employer in America after the federal government. Any crystal ball is fairly opaque right now, but we have to believe that eateries will reopen, with a live and paying audience, long before sports will. When, how, and with what sort of altered business model will that happen? Those are the conundrums that dining, fine and otherwise, share with big-time sports during the age of the coronavirus.
Restaurant industry stalwarts like Ludo and Krissy Lefebvre say the way they’ve done business for years will have to change after the pandemic finally ends.The Connect Group
“I can’t think that any restaurant, event, or sports businesses will return to what we used to call normal, until there’s a vaccine,” said Krissy Lefebvre, the former counsel for the Staples Center and Leonard Armato’s Management Plus, who is now executive vice president of chef Ludo Lefebvre’s Ludo Management. She is also married to the chef, who runs three brick-and-mortar restaurants in and around Los Angeles, along with Ludo Bird fried chicken outlets at Staples Center.
The Los Angeles mayor’s office, among others, have been suggesting that when restaurants are allowed to reopen, it will be at 50% capacity. Has anyone checked with the landlords whose leases are based on those restaurants operating somewhere close to capacity?
“Restaurants aren’t built to survive at 50%, so models will have to change or we’ll go out of business,” said Lefebvre, who already converted one restaurant to a food marketplace. “Maybe that becomes everyone’s side business now, because every restaurant cannot do takeout.”
Tiffani FaisonThe Connect Group
Because of the coronavirus shutdown, chef Tiffani Faison had to furlough more than 200 workers at her multiple Boston restaurants. Like every other big-name chef, she’s helping to cook hundreds of meals for front-line hospital employees. Beyond that, “for the first few weeks, there was this feeling I should be somewhere, but that’s faded. I’m occasionally thinking about what that new model will be, but no one knows, so I’m trying not to make myself crazy about that.”
Only a chef’s heart could be broken by watching someone eat a quick-service restaurant burger. But that’s what happened to Marc Forgione, who has two New York City restaurants, the first time he delivered food that he’d cooked to a hospital on Manhattan’s East Side.
“Summer is usually a slow time, so we’re all hoping for a gradual build back up to the fall and holidays,” said Forgione, adding that he missed everything about restaurant cooking, from lighting a stove to yelling at co-workers. “Rent is going to become a bigger problem than talent and supplies,” he said, echoing the concerns of nearly all the retail businesses displaced by COVID-19. “Landlords are going to have to play ball or there won’t be a restaurant business.”
Marc ForgioneThe Connect Group
Lonny Sweet’s Connect Group, NYC, represents Forgione and other top chefs. “When you change the economics of a restaurant by that much, and you don’t get relief from your landlord or your bank, it can’t work, and that’s the concern of everyone in this business,” Sweet said.
Charlie Palmer’s 12 restaurants furloughed more than 600 workers last month. Pre-coronavirus, the joke around his corporate offices was that he hadn’t been there for at least a year.
“The social part of our business was what attracted me in the first place,” said Palmer, whose organization is also cooking hundreds of meals daily for hospital workers. “So that’s what I miss the most. … There has to be a future where people feel safe in a crowd, but there are a lot of questions to be answered. More people will be working at home, so will that mean fewer will be going out at the end of the workday? It’s a future that [will] look a lot different.”
Or as Faison observed, “We can do cooking that includes social distance, but it slows everything down. We’ll just have to account for that.”
All the chefs interviewed here said they are continuing to cook at home, if only to preserve their sanity. Still, there are exceptions. “I’m doing dinner tonight and it will be Shake ’N Bake chicken,” Krissy Lefebvre said with a laugh. “Ludo thinks it’s a secret family recipe, so don’t tell him.”
