Terry Riley has operated his bar/restaurant on Syracuse’s North Side for more than 40 years. Riley’s has been closed, not even offering takeout, for the three months since the coronavirus pandemic hit.
So you’d think he’d be itching to get back in action. Maybe he is, but it’s not going to happen soon.
Riley is one of a perhaps surprising number of bar/restaurant operators in Central New York who prefer to wait until things “settle down” a bit more. They’ve chosen not to reopen under the restrictions in force in the current phase of the state’s reopening plan.
“At this point, my opinion is that we should stay closed until maybe mid-September,” Riley said of his place at 312 Park St. “Let’s see where things are going.”
Riley and others who are waiting it out cite several factors: The uncertainty over whether they can guarantee staff and customer safety, the difficulty of enforcing the rules on how to reopen, the dilemma of limiting the number of customers, and the difficulty in getting staff back to work,
And, not to forget, can they make money?
“Well, they say money isn’t everything,” Riley said. “But you can’t run a business without it.”
That’s among the many reasons that Laura Serway gives for her decision to postpone the reopening of Laci’s Tapas Bar on Hawley Avenue until July 30, instead of doing it now.
She’s worried about making it work when she can only seat 50% of capacity.
“I think, well maybe by July 30 it’ll be up to 75% or 100%,” she said. “That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.”
Serway is also concerned for the safety of her staff and knows that many of them are still benefiting from the $600 bonuses that are coming in weekly unemployment checks.
“I feel like reopening now could put someone at risk and take away a benefit they’re getting,” she said. “So I’m in no rush to reopen.”
The uncertainty of the state’s reopening schedule is a major factor. Central New York is one of several regions in the state that recently entered phase four of reopening. Until now, each phase had a two-week window, and then there were fewer restrictions in the next phase.
But there is currently no plan for a phase five and no timetable for further relaxing of the rules.
“(There’s) a lot of scared people right now,” local restaurant consultant Bud Loura said of the owners he’s talked to.
Loura, whose consulting firm is called RestaurantQB, also talks regularly with government officials. That underscores the uncertainty.
No one, he said, yet knows the answer to such questions as the one posed by Laura Serway: Will the next “phase” increase seating capacity to 75% or 100%?
Or using another example of a current restriction: Will masks still be required for customers who are not seated? When will that end?
The uncertainty has led to many Facebook postings like this recent one from Vicino’s Brick n Brew, a pizza, burger and sandwich place that debuted on Route 11 in Cicero in late 2018:
“We had an incredibly successful first year-and-a-half thanks to all of your support and we were hoping issues created by Covid-19 would not affect us,” the post said. ”Unfortunately there is so much uncertainty at this time that we are unable to reopen just yet. We are working hard to figure out a way to maintain the business and we will keep you posted as we go along ...”
The decision to remain closed for the time being comes with the risk that customers will think a place is permanently shut down. Such concerns seemed to grow in recent weeks, as other dining rooms reopened.
The permanent closing of such notable restaurants as Kelley’s on Velasko Road this month only fueled such rumors. One involved Riley’s. Like Kelley’s, it’s a long-time neighborhood gathering spot that offers the best of the bar/restaurant combination.
When called by syracuse.com about the rumors, Terry Riley, a friend of Jon Kelley, said he was surprised when he heard about the Kelley’s closing.
“We’ve done a lot of thinking on this,” Riley said, describing meetings, often remote, with his staff. “There’s a lot of thought going into it. But no, we’re not closing up. We’ll be back.”
Another recent rumor involved the restaurant at the Western Ranch Motor Lodge in Lakeland. This one seems to fall into the category of places that have reopened but cut back their hours of operation, so people passing by may think they’re closed.
“We’ve scaled back a lot,” said owner Wally Gaworecki Jr. “But we‘re here.”
His experience with reopening so far seems to support both sides of the decision of whether to reopen or not.
One one hand, he said, “It’s tough to make people wear the masks and everything. You’re a policeman as much as you’re running a restaurant.”
On the other hand, despite a cutback in hours and other limitations, “business is about 50% of what we’d normally do. So we’re holding our own.”
MORE ON BARS/RESTAURANTS
Frustration rises for bars that follow rules while others don’t
Restaurants reopen. How did the first weekend go?
Cuomo: State can now shut down rule-breaking bars immediately
Barkeepers’s dilemma: How do I run my place if I have to keep people six feet apart?
Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
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Some Central New York restaurants reopen. Others prefer to wait. Here’s why - syracuse.com
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