GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Restaurants are once again open for in person dining. There are still some challenges, however, with 25% capacity limits and other restrictions.
Anthony Tangorra, the managing member of Mertens Prime in Grand Rapids, is asking customers to dine out on weekdays. Many restaurants make the bulk of their income on Friday and Saturday nights. With capacity limits on those days, less money is being made. So, to spread it out, try dining on a Wednesday.
"We need to bring up the valleys on weekdays," said Tangorra, "to make up for the fact we can’t get to the same level of peak on the weekends that we did even at 50% capacity. And now, this shaves off Fridays and Saturdays to the point where it might not make sense for the business to be open unless we can bring those weekdays up."
Mertens Prime is even offering special menu items as incentive to book a reservation or walk-in on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Sunday.
Tangorra said even with a large dining space, reopening at 25% capacity will impact their sales "significantly." However, he is happy to be open and is finding ways to navigate the new challenges.
Another way to help restaurants with this limited reopening is to not cancel reservations at the last minute.
"That left us, in many cases, leaving us with empty tables from late cancellations," said Tangorra. "That truly had a fairly significant financial impact on us in October and November."
Also, making a reservation for a restaurant can be useful to a business if they offer them. But keep your arrival time close to that reservation. Especially on the weekends, the restaurants will be operating close to their 25% capacity and will not be allowing guests to wait indoors for their table.
Buying gift cards and ordering takeout are great options to also support your favorite restaurant, but Tangorra said the best thing to do is to dine in, now that it is available.
Restaurants are gearing up for one if their busiest days of the year: Valentine's Day. Even with the capacity limit and curfew, next weekend will be busy for eateries. That is good news for Tangorra, who said many restaurants make and save a lot of money in December to last through the winter. Without that month being open for dining last year, they are just trying to find ways to make it to spring.
"We have to be as creative as we can to be able to survive this set of challenges this time around," said Tangorra. "It’s been what we’ve been doing for the past year. It felt like being in a video game, when you have various projectiles flying at you and you're dodging and knocking them out the way to survive. So, we feel battle tested, but we don’t take it for granted."
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