Richard Rosenthal and the managing partners of Max Restaurant Group used to meet every Tuesday at one of the group’s 10 eateries, driving for hours at times to sample each restaurant’s specialties and talk business. Since the pandemic, however, the weekly meeting happens on Zoom, and Rosenthal knows that’s bad for his business.
“It’s a better way of us meeting,” Rosenthal said of videoconferencing, adding that he also now allows Max office employees to work from home.
Although necessary during the pandemic, remote working and online meetings have emptied downtown Hartford and cost Max Downtown and Trumbull Kitchen 90% of their weekday business. Trumbull Kitchen has been closed (temporarily) since December and Max Downtown has seen a sharp downturn.
“Downtown Hartford is going to have a difficult time,” Rosenthal said, adding that office occupancy may never return to its pre-COVID high.
But in his 34 years in the restaurant business, Rosenthal has learned to navigate hard times and look to the future. When theaters reopen and sporting events return, he’s confident that his flagship downtown restaurants will flourish once again.
Trumbull Kitchen is slated to reopen in March and Max Downtown is holding on thanks to weekend diners from Hartford’s surrounding neighborhoods. Those who traditionally commuted to downtown may need extra incentives.
“We’ll just have to be more friendly to the suburbs,” Rosenthal said. “We’ll have to do more things to bring them downtown.”
Dividends in diversifying
Federal aid, a diverse portfolio of restaurants and agility has helped Max Restaurant Group hang on during the worst of the pandemic, even as COVID-19 infections remain elevated in the depths of winter.
The two Max Restaurant Group restaurants in West Hartford pivoted early to takeout and outdoor dining, with Max’s Oyster Bar thriving from takeout, outdoor and indoor business thanks to its large dining area. From barely 1%, takeout is now 25% of the Oyster Bar’s business. Italian bistro Max a Mia in Avon now does 50% of its business in takeout compared to 10% before the pandemic.
All of the group’s restaurants, including Max Fish in Glastonbury and the Max Burgers in West Hartford and Longmeadow, Mass., have benefited from new offerings like to-go family meals and boxes for special occasions. Menus have been pared back at all of the eateries to allow for takeout and more efficient ordering.
“They’ve done an amazing job being fluid and agile in dealing with all the changes, creating new sources of revenue,” Rosenthal said of his managing partners. “It’s all about keeping people employed, keeping our guests engaged with us and staying in business.”
Like many businesses Max Restaurant Group has also benefited from federal relief programs, specifically the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
In 2020, various Max Restaurant Group businesses, including its Greater Hartford eateries and catering operations, received around $4.4 million in PPP funds, according to data from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The one Max restaurant that’s doing better than ever is its lone outpost in Florida, naturally. Northeasterners fleeing the pandemic have helped boost business to new highs at the Cooper in Palm Beach Gardens, among other Sunshine State eateries.
Revenue for the entire group was down 38.2% in 2020, and the employee count at the 10 restaurants dropped from 869 to 480 due to a combination of layoffs and attrition.
Outdoor option
Despite the Northeast’s harsh winter weather, Rosenthal and other Hartford-area restaurateurs expect outdoor dining to return as a popular option as soon as the temperature allows. Many towns have stepped in to help restaurants adapt to moving service outside.
West Hartford led the state in allowing for quick changes to expedite outdoor dining in its retail centers, including installing barriers and changing traffic patterns in West Hartford Center and Blue Back Square.
The Connecticut Restaurant Association plans to help introduce legislation to make such changes easier across the state, said Executive Director Scott Dolch. Some Fairfield County towns made parts of their downtowns pedestrian-only to help restaurants, another innovation he expects to continue and expand.
“You want foot traffic in your downtowns; you want that vibrancy,” Dolch said. “You want people to come back.”
Outdoor dining was such a lifesaver for many restaurants last summer that new eateries are seeking spaces with outdoor potential or building out outdoor areas.
When announcing the debut of a new Wood-n-Tap restaurant in Enfield last fall, the Hartford Restaurant Group (HRG) touted an 8,000-square-foot patio with 225 seats that had been built in what was once a grassy area.
“We really want to show our guests and let our guests know that we are a safe environment,” HRG partner Phil Barnett said.
Technology here to stay
Delivery apps and other forms of takeout are also expected to remain part of the mix at Max Restaurant Group, Rosenthal said.
Takeout checks are smaller, however, and eat into profits, along with the cut taken by apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats. A restaurant has to do $15,000 in takeout business to replace $10,000 in the same dine-in business, Rosenthal said.
Adoption is necessary: Young customers prefer using their phones and order apps and will likely sustain a higher volume of takeout orders even after the pandemic, Dolch said.
Even so, most restaurateurs are confident that many customers want to return to dining at restaurants, both for the experience and because they are sick of cooking for themselves. Home cooking is much more exacting and time-consuming than it was in earlier generations and with the cost of quality ingredients, can be not much of a bargain.
“People cooking at home a lot has made them appreciate our food that much more,” Rosenthal said, adding that customers also miss the social experience of dining out. “We really feel that there’s a huge pent-up demand to dine out. We want to be amongst people and people have missed that.”
Growth ahead
Dolch of the CRA said he is doing his best through supporting pandemic relief programs to ensure that Connecticut’s independent restaurants like Max Restaurant Group survive with enough resources to rebuild and help make the state a culinary destination again. He also hopes that the state retains pandemic changes like the rule put in place early in the crisis that allowed restaurants to sell alcohol with takeout food orders.
Looking to the post-pandemic future, Rosenthal sees potential for new restaurant concepts in the Hartford area, in part due to a soft commercial real estate market and newly flexible landlords. These new eateries may have to expand their menus and look to new food trends to bring back the crowds.
“We’re going to have to be a little more creative again,” Rosenthal said. “We have some opportunities that we’re looking at – to come out of this and hopefully grow a little.”
