After a two month ban, restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island are able to seat customers indoors up to 25% capacity. // Photo courtesy of Queens Business News
Indoor dining resumed in New York City on Friday, Feb. 12 at 25% capacity following a two-month ban due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.
While the five boroughs were forced to rely solely on takeout and outdoor dining since the beginning of December 2020, the rest of New York state, including Long Island, had indoor dining available at 50% capacity.
“It’s been completely unfair,” said George Siaxabanis, owner of Metro Diner in Queens. “Ten miles east of here, restaurants were allowed to operate again, [but] the outer-boroughs weren’t.”
The ban was put into effect a little more than 10 weeks after the boroughs could resume indoor dining at 25% capacity for the first time since March. The second shutdown left restaurants with outdoor dining, takeout and delivery heading into the winter months.
“It’s an injustice that Long Island was able to stay at 50% capacity this entire time,” said Rachel Luscher, a sophomore journalism major and hostess at Metro Diner. “I know Long Island’s infection rate was a lot higher than ours … and the Governor uses the population density to justify shutting us down.”
New York restaurants and bars accounted for 1.4% of the cases from September to December of last year. In comparison, private and social gatherings accounted for 74% of COVID-19 cases tracked by the state during those months, according to Cuomo during his Dec. 11 press conference.
“[The state’s] own testing showed [restaurants] weren’t spreading this,” said Siaxabanis, “yet they decided to shut us down.”
Siaxabanis argued that if the state left indoor dining at 25% capacity, the numbers would have been better.
“In my opinion, it probably helped fuel the spread of it [COVID-19] because the numbers didn’t go down after they shut us down – [the] numbers shot up,” Siaxabanis said. “People were hanging out in houses … and at least when people did it in restaurants and bars, they were forced to do it safely.”
According to Luscher, it is necessary to reopen indoor dining, but the restaurant industry in the five boroughs is “severely damaged.”
“25% [capacity] is nothing compared to what restaurants used to make or had the potential to before COVID,” she said. “With all these regulations, many people don’t even want to bother going to a restaurant anymore.”
New York City restaurants are required to contact trace, check the temperature of every customer and mandate six feet of separation between those not in the same party.
“It’s not a pleasant experience,” Luscher said. “[People] would rather just invite people over at their homes.”
“It’s very difficult running a business when you’re handcuffed,” Siaxabanis added.
Metro Diner has been in business for 30 years and has received outpouring support from the community.
Metro Diner in Queens has prepared their restaurant to be ‘COVID-friendly’ as customers return indoors. // Photo courtesy of Rachel Luscher
“Whether it was raining or hot [over the summer], it didn’t make a difference,” he said. “People still came out because people were so bored, and they couldn’t do anything.”
The winter months, however, have made it difficult to attract customers, especially those of an older age. “I have an older clientele that have been coming here since [the diner opened],” Siaxbanis said. “I see them all the time, and they’re just like, ‘George, I don’t know if this is my last winter’ … they don’t know how much time they have left and coming here, it breaks up the day.”
Not only is indoor dining beneficial for the restaurants themselves, but for the community as well. “I just hope we’re not forced to shut down again,” Siaxbanis continued. “I mean for those people; it’s just so sad.”
The country is nearly a year into the pandemic, and fortunately Siaxabanis and his business survived the shutdowns and he was able to keep almost all his staff on payroll, but with new variants of the coronavirus reaching the United States, there is a fear of restaurants shutting down again.
“I can’t survive another year like this,” Siaxabanis said. “I just hope that they let us reopen and we stay at least at 25% [capacity] – we can’t go through another shutdown.”