Undeterred by Tropical Storm Irene, The Cheesecake Factory Inc. opened a restaurant at Danbury Fair Mall the day after the storm hit, with capacity for 180 people. In Stamford, BarTaco scheduled its own opening for the week after Labor Day, even as its original Port Chester, N.Y., location weathered Irene. Same goes for Orange-based Chip”™s, which opened a second pancake house in Fairfield on the eve of Irene.
In the days after Irene did her best to flatten Fairfield County, restaurants and grocery stores were rebounding in the order that Connecticut Light & Power Co. and United Illuminating Co. were managing to restore power to their neighborhoods.
While too late for many to save their food stores, some nevertheless enjoyed a bounce back as takeout orders arrived for households that had yet to get reconnected to the grid.
Perhaps ironically, Irene arrived on the doorstep of National Food Safety Education Month in September. That prompted the Connecticut Department of Public Health to warn restaurants not to take any chances on food that might become contaminated as chillers thawed or water seeped into places it should not. As the Food and Drug Administration put it, “if in doubt, throw it out.”
In its own how-to hurricane guide, the National Restaurant Association advises restaurants to donate any perishable foods to shelters or other charities rather than attempt to beat the odds and save their inventory. In New York, the City Harvest charity reportedly received food from some 300 supermarkets, restaurants and hotels.
Those that did manage to keep the lights on fared well, particularly with the aid of social media sites and mobile phones to spread the word. In New York City, the website ny.eater.com published a list of restaurants open during the storm. It also publicized a Dine Out for Irene benefit night, with participating restaurants donating 10 percent of their sales on Sept. 25 to New York-area farms.
Still, the storm”™s timing was particularly bad arriving on the cusp of the Labor Day weekend that ordinarily might have droves of families and visitors out for a meal. Instead, many appeared to stay home to clean up and take stock, blunting the weekend take for some eateries. And Connecticut restaurants see more storm clouds on the horizon with the state enacting a paid sick-leave bill that will force larger restaurants to compensate workers on days they are out sick and with energy and food costs remaining high.
An index measuring current business and future expectations, published by the National Restaurant Association, was already at its lowest level in 11 months entering August. The organization surmised was in part due to fears of a new recession spawned by the debt crisis and other warning signs.
That could have an impact on spending by some restaurants, with just 42 percent expecting to make capital outlays over the next six months, down from the 50 percent that said in July they would do so.
“The summer months are very important to the restaurant industry,” said Hudson Riehle, chief economist for the National Restaurant Association, in a review of the organization”™s most recent index. “Roughly two out of three Americans have ”¦ visited a restaurant while on a vacation or trip (this summer).”
