Log in

Local businesses see an increase in dine-in customers after reopening

Posted 6/3/20

Almost a month after reopenings began for restaurants in Arizona, Scottsdale establishments have noticed a drastic increase of in-person patrons.

On May 11 Gov. Doug Ducey announced that …

You must be a member to read this story.

Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.


Already have an account? Log in to continue.

Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here

Otherwise, follow the link below to join.

To Our Valued Readers –

Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.

For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.

Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.

Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.

Sincerely,
Charlene Bisson, Publisher, Independent Newsmedia

Please log in to continue

Log in
I am anchor

Local businesses see an increase in dine-in customers after reopening

Posted

Almost a month after reopenings began for restaurants in Arizona, Scottsdale establishments have noticed a drastic increase of in-person patrons.

On May 11 Gov. Doug Ducey announced that restaurants could proceed with restarting dine-in services as a part of the plan to reopen the state. The change began slowly but more and more restaurants have opened their doors again to customers.

For Riot Hospitality Group who runs restaurants Farm & Craft and Hand Cut Chophouse in Scottsdale, they’ve seen a “huge spike” in customers coming into the restaurants according to Sean Frantz, marketing director for the company.

“It’s been very good for us,” Mr. Frantz said. “It’s really kind of gotten us back on track and we’re very grateful that we’ve been able to reopen.”

Farm & Craft reopened on May 18 while Hand Cut opened a couple of days later on May 20. According to Mr. Frantz, even with added health precautions like enforced social distancing practices and cashless operations, people were eager to come back to the restaurants.

“We saw quite a bit of traffic and a good amount of people coming in even though we had a limited [availability] for them to be able to dine in,” he said.

With this increase of customers, they have implemented a multitude of safety precautions as recommended by health officials to help protect both patrons and staff members to promote an overall safe environment. Plexiglass dividers at tables and health screenings and masks for all staff are just a few of these regulations.

“We made sure that we were abiding by them fully, and making sure that everybody [including] customers and employees were safe,” Mr. Frantz said.

For their restaurants, things are looking hopeful as they no longer have to rely solely on takeout and delivery services. While things are not totally back to normal just yet, Mr. Frantz said that things have gotten much better than before reopenings.

“This is not just the company’s livelihood,” he said. “This is every single employee that works in this hospitality industry and without support from the local residents, feeling comfortable and knowing that we are taking those safety precautions, that we wouldn’t be able to keep going along and essentially, keep moving.”

While Riot Hospitality Group’s restaurants were able to reopen more quickly following Gov. Ducey’s announcement, other restaurants have just started to greet customers for dine-in services again.

Sel, a chef-owned and operated restaurant in Scottsdale, opened doors to customers again on May 28 said May Levine, co-owner of the restaurant.

“When all the other restaurants opened up around us, it basically, killed our to-go business,” she said.

Because of this, Sel rushed to reopen. In their first week though, like Farm & Craft and Chop House, they also saw an increase in diners coming into the restaurant.

“We were busier than what we were expecting,” Ms. Levine said. “So we were thinking that it might be a good summer.”

Despite decreasing their capacity from 100 to only 65, she said they were able to fill 40 of those seats on Saturday. Due to the riots over the weekend and a curfew being put in place, they did notice that a lot of their reservations got canceled as a result but they are still going to be open during regular business hours.

Ms. Levine explained that the restaurant has made additional changes to its operations outside of health and safety precautions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Among these changes are a switch from a pre-fixed tasting menu to more a la carte items as well as lower prices on the menu.

“Everyone’s coming from the shutdown as some people aren’t earning as much so we wanted it to be appealing to people still coming out of the pandemic,” she said.

Sel, like many other restaurants, has felt the economic impact of businesses being shut down. Even with takeout and delivery services, restaurants missed half of their highest profiting month because of the shutdown.

“You still have bills to pay even if you’re not making as much money as you would if you were open,” Ms. Levine said.

At Sel, while they are continuing to run delivery services it’s become difficult to manage that along with dine-in services. Being a smaller restaurant, they don’t know if they have the staff capacity to manage both simultaneously according to Ms. Levine.

Despite their worries, they look forward to guests coming back to their restaurant safely with their new adjustments.

“I hope that they would all come out and support all the other small restaurants in town,” Ms. Levine said.

For smaller businesses like Sel, the City of Scottsdale put together the Small Business Assistance Center to help them through issues brought upon by COVID-19. The Economic Development Department saw a need for a resource for small businesses according to Cristal Rodriguez, marketing manager for the department.

“[We were] thinking, what can we do to help the community kind of navigate through all those forms and resources,” Ms. Rodriguez said.

The center is online and has been running since early April. The team has helped businesses with confusing or new issues that they may have with applying for federal or state aid as well as other problems like confusion with takeout regulations. According to Ms. Rodriguez, the center tries to get back to all their queries within one business day.

As restaurants reopen, the center remains open to continue helping businesses understand what to do as they start dine-in services.

“We’re getting a lot more steady calls and contacts about you know reopening processes,” Ms. Rodriguez said.

New problems have arisen with reopening from the shutdown like expired licenses for bars. Now, after a few months of operations, the team has gotten much faster with responding to issues and they have a more expanded knowledge of this subject matter. This along with an increase in team members has greatly helped to move along this process, according to Ms. Rodriguez.

“The resources that are available are ever-changing thanks to all the different organizations that are involved,” she said.

What makes the center different from other online resources is that it serves as a “one-stop-shop” according to Ms. Rodriguez. Businesses can reach out and get assistance on any issue or question that they may have.

“This is a confusing time for all of us [and] if we can lend any help or direction on navigating through all this confusing information that we’re receiving [and] that they receive on a daily basis, we’d love to help,” Ms. Rodriguez said.

Editor’s Note: Caroline Yu is a student-journalist at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism serving in a paid internship role at Independent Newsmedia.