Delivery, takeout and beyond: Pioneer Valley restaurants make do with a tough coronavirus situation - MassLive.com

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EAST LONGMEADOW — Center Square Grill is developing a new menu — of school lunches for students whose school is home.

Owner William Collins is developing a subscription service that will deliver two times a week and provide five lunches complete with juice boxes and snacks. The target audience is harried parents whose kids are learning at home in this, the sixth month of the coronavirus pandemic.

The virus has Massachusetts restaurants operating at reduced capacities. Many now depend on patio seating to accommodate diners, but winter is fast approaching.

Collins also described a new food delivery concept he’s working on. Customers would call hours or days ahead of time to set up dinner, just like how they used to make reservations for a table at the restaurant.

“We are all trying to work as hard as we can for less money,” said Collins, also a partner at HighBrow Wood Fired Kitchen + Bar in Northampton. “To ensure that the business is here when we are on the other side of it. To make sure that we are still open when coronavirus is under control and business really comes back.”

Restaurant owners say the pandemic has made a tough industry even tougher. It has taken away lucrative bar revenue while forcing restaurants to build tents and outdoor patios and to install plexiglass partitions to keep people safe.

Despite these safety measures, dining still involves risk. A recent study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found adults who have tested positive for COVID-19 were twice as likely to have reported dining in a restaurant than those who tested negative.

Restaurants were limited to takeout and delivery service in the first months of the pandemic. Outdoor dining was given the green light in early June, and limited indoor dining followed at the end of the month. But business has been slow to return.

The Massachusetts Restaurant Association has predicted that about 20% of the state’s restaurants wouldn’t survive the pandemic. And there’s no indication when the pandemic will be over.

Locally the pandemic has been particularly hard on chains, with the Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub closing its location in the Eastfield Mall in Springfield. The Olive Garden on Boston Road closed as well.

In West Springfield, Carrabba’s Italian Grill closed permanently.

Sun Kim Bop, an independently run 3-year-old Korean restaurant on Springfield’s Main Street, didn’t reopen following its shutdown in March.

The downtown Hot Table is doing well, said company president John DeVoie.

“For us, knock on wood, we are doing really well,” he said. “We rebranded.”

Hot Table pivoted to takeout and delivery, rising trends that were accelerated by the pandemic. The Tower Square location is now mostly a delivery hub while many office workers who were once dependable lunch customers are working from home.

All seven Hot Table locations are back at their 2019 numbers, DeVoie said — a massive rebound from the start of the pandemic, when business was off 75%.

“It’s a matter of survival for us,” he said. “I was wondering what kind of future I had with my company.”

Fast-casual restaurants like Hot Table are well positioned.

“So the real winners in this whole mess have been fast food and drive-thrus,” he said.

Dominic Pompi, owner of Memo’s in West Springfield, said he’s busy. He won’t be able to serve customers in his outdoor tent much longer as the weather turns cold. He’s already polled customers to see how they feel about plexiglass barriers between booths.

“We are looking into the future right now to figure things out,” he said. “We’ll continue outdoors as long as we can. We’ll make adjustments and do whatever is necessary.”

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Delivery, takeout and beyond: Pioneer Valley restaurants make do with a tough coronavirus situation - MassLive.com
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