Tomorrow Connecticut will lift COVID-19-related capacity limits on restaurants, a sign of brightening prospects for businesses in an industry hit especially hard by the pandemic.
But outdoor dining will be key in the coming months as restaurants try to recover from a dismal year, restaurateurs and industry experts say.
Removing the mandate that limits eateries to only 50% indoor capacity likely won’t do much to expand the number of customers they can allow in the restaurant, since they still must space tables six feet apart, or separate them with non-porous barriers like plexiglass.
But the elimination of capacity restrictions coincides with a faster-than-expected vaccine rollout, and the spring season, which will allow for a return to outdoor dining, and that could mean a major ramp up in business for restaurants, said said Steve Abrams, a partner in Max Restaurant Group.
“I think you get shots in people’s arms, one of the first things they want to do is go out to eat,” Abrams said. “I think restaurants will be hiring employees back, and good times are coming.”
When the pandemic forced a complete shut-down of restaurants in the state Max Restaurant Group’s workforce dropped from about 900 workers across its 10 restaurants to about 100, Abrams said. But the return of outdoor dining as the weather gets warm combined with the expected rolling back of restrictions and the continuation of ramped-up to-go business could mean happy days ahead.
While outdoor dining won’t do much for Max’s two downtown Hartford locations (Max Downtown and Trumbull Kitchen, scheduled to reopen next month), Abrams expects a summer surge in business at the groups other eight locations. Abrams said he and his partners are considering opening more locations, and space for outdoor dining is now a key factor in real estate decisions.
“We would not even consider an opportunity if it didn’t have room for an outdoor dining option,” Abrams said.
An executive order Gov. Ned Lamont issued last year created cutouts that make it easier for restaurants to offer outdoor dining. Aspects like expedited zoning amendments and lifting minimum parking requirements on restaurants allowed eateries to host customers and helped keep them in business, said Scott Dolch, executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association.
Dolch would like that order extended past its April 20 expiration date, but a Connecticut Superior Court judge’s decision this month on a case involving executive orders may require state legislative approval to prolong enhanced outdoor dining allowances. Dolch also supports a three-year extension to outdoor dining allowances proposed in the legislature.
But Dolch said he is bullish about the spring and summer months, as cities and towns have been working with restaurants in planning for a return to expanded outdoor dining.
“As I talk to these towns, I’m excited to see what they come up with,” said Dolch, who added city and town officials are more open than ever to things like closing downtown areas to traffic to allow for outdoor restaurant service. “I think that we could really have an amazing spring, summer and early fall.”
Dolch added that one subset of the industry that does stand to benefit from Friday’s loosening of restrictions is companies that put on large events. Starting tomorrow the state will allow up to 200 people at outdoor events and 100 at indoor events with proper social distancing, a big help for businesses that do catering and events like weddings and bar mitzvahs, Dolch said.