After more than two hellish months of closed doors capped by days of widespread looting, many restaurant owners are looking forward to serving dine-in customers again Wednesday — even if it’s just open-air seating.
“I’m thrilled we can reopen,” said Doug Dunlay, who owns Crosby’s Kitchen, 3455 N. Southport Ave., along with four other North Side eateries that will begin seating diners.
“Every seat is extremely valuable,” said Dunlay, who expects to do about 12% to 25% of normal business with open-air seating in place.
“I think people are dying to feel normal again ... anniversaries, dates, family time,” he said.
“And we need this to help jump start restaurants. And we need the governor and the mayor to see we’re responsible and move us to Phase Four as quickly as possible, so we can have people sitting inside,” he said.
“Then again, what if it rains ... then our business is back to zero.”
Sam Sanchez owns Old Crow Smokehouse and Moe’s Cantina, two River North restaurants heavily damaged by looters over the weekend.
“They even stole artwork off walls,” Sanchez said.
Thankfully, the two restaurants have counterparts by the same name a stone’s throw from Wrigley Field with rooftop and other outdoor seating Sanchez plans to open Wednesday.
“We’ve been getting phone calls asking if we’re opening,” he said, noting he isn’t taking any chances and will continue to board up windows after closing time.
Sharon McKennie said that, under the state’s reopening guidelines, they’ll only be able to fit four tables onto the patio at the West Side institution MacArthur’s Restaurant, but she said “it’s exciting just to be moving to the next stage.”
“It’s been really hard. We were closed for six weeks, and we were blessed not to have any looting,” said McKennie, the restaurant manager. “So we’re saying a prayer for other small businesses, that customers return, and we can all get a start on a new beginning.
“It’ll be nice getting back to some form of normalcy,” she said.
Jamie Taerbaum’s restaurant, Soupbox, is on a stretch of North Broadway in the Lake View East neighborhood that’s slated to close to vehicular traffic in the coming days to allow for increased outdoor seating. Taerbaum plans to run his usual outdoor patio when his permit clears but isn’t as excited as others about the street closing.
“We’re mostly grab-and-go and delivery, so it will hinder us because delivery drivers won’t have access, and we haven’t quite figured out what to do about that,” he said. The alley behind the shop isn’t a great option because it’s often jammed with residential traffic, he lamented.
Lori Seay, co-owner of the Original Soul Vegetarian Restaurant in Chatham, said that with a renovation underway, they’re not planning a full-on reopening until late June. In the meantime, she’s helping clean up a few neighboring businesses that were hit in the weekend chaos.
“We’ll play it by ear like we have been. It’s kind of quiet right now,” Seay said.
Despite the double-whammy fear factor of the coronavirus and violent demonstrations, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) predicted that diners will flock to patios at as many as a dozen Lake View restaurants. That includes his own restaurant, Ann Sather, 3415 N. Broadway.
“Our customers have been trying to get in for months. Some of the other places say they’ve got reservations ready to go,” Tunney said.
“People are so — no pun intended — hungry to get out. Hungry to socialize. They’ve been reading enough about the science and the cautionary efforts. They have figured out what the rules will be.”
Tunney joined Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Restaurant Association president Sam Toia in urging Gov. J.B. Pritzker to allow at least some indoor dining during the month of June instead of waiting until June 26 at the earliest to graduate to Phase 4.
“We have to get the inside of these restaurants open to 25% as soon as possible — with the proper spacing and distancing and hygiene and masks,” Tunney said.
“I’ve been to Indiana. I’ve seen how it’s done. We’ve got to figure out how to [follow their lead]. There will be more cases. But, what I’m hearing from the public health [officials] is, this is still manageable.”
