It’s typical for restaurants around here to adjust their hours of operation with the seasons. Many close earlier in the winter and stay open later in the summer. Recently, however, Restaurantarama has noticed a new trend: restaurants changing their hours of operation mid-season to deal, undoubtedly, with the recession. What’s interesting is that some places have chosen to open their doors more often while others less. For example, Aqui es Mexico announced new hours last week: The Mexican-Salvadorian restaurant is now closed on Mondays and opens an hour later at 10am on Sundays. Contrast that with Escafé which, under new owners and management as of four months ago, recently added Monday nights to its schedule. The new night is billed as “Industry Night,” as in Monday is a popular day for many restaurants to be closed in any season, giving all those chefs, bartenders and servers a place to hang out on their day off. Manager and majority owner Todd Howard tells us that adding Monday night was part of the original business plan and that his regular customers have been asking for it. Despite the downturn, Howard says it makes sense to add the hours now because Escafé can be staffed so leanly on those nights.
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Escafé owner/dishwasher Todd Howard recently bucked the shrinking-hours trend by adding Monday nights to his operating schedule. “There’s no additional cost except for a bartender and some kitchen staff,” he says. |
“There’s no additional cost except for a bartender and some kitchen staff,” he says.
Howard himself is on the line on Mondays and adds that being an owner and operator has its advantages during these dire financial days: “My business card reads: Todd Howard, owner/dishwasher.”
Other places we’ve noticed have made changes somewhat recently include Rita’s Ice. When the franchise opened on the Corner last summer, owner Kate Matikonas told us that as opposed to most Rita’s Ice franchisees, she’d be open year-round. But a sign out front now reads “Closed for the season.” Also, a few weeks ago we told you that Carmello’s has adjusted its schedule to open earlier, at noon, on Sundays.
Whether a place can add to the revenue stream with additional hours or whether it must cut costs and overhead by shutting its doors more often likely depends in part on the size of the place, the complexity of the food and the amount of staff that’s necessary to run the show.
But there’s always an exception to the rule. Take, for another example, The Box on Second Street SE. Judging by its small size and limited menu, you’d assume The Box would have few variable costs associated with additional hours of operation, but Restaurantarama recently (and belatedly) discovered the place has been closed for lunch. Literally boxed in by the scaffolding that surrounds it thanks to the building of the nine-story-Landmark Hotel-that-may-never-happen next door, part-owner and manager Chas Webster says he stopped serving lunch when construction began. That means ever since last spring, The Box has subsisted on the dinner and late-night drinking crowd enticed by a regular line-up of music acts. Now that the Landmark’s major investor Halsey Minor has filed suit against developer Lee Danielson and the project’s lender for breach of contract, however, construction appears to have ceased indefinitely. What does that mean for The Box?
“I’ve been speaking to the city about having the scaffolding removed. They tell me it will happen within two weeks,” says Webster.
