5 minute read
CASE STUDY: RESILIENCE
New South Kitchen & Bar | Charlotte
SURVIVAL COOKING
COVID-19 has been brutal to the restaurant industry. But Chris Edwards and his wife, Sue, have kept their Charlotte eatery open with a positive outlook and a side of determination.
Chris Edwards and his wife, Sue, opened 90-seat New South Kitchen & Bar at Charlotte’s The Arboretum Shopping Center in 2007. Since opening their previous restaurant — Dakotas — in 1997, when the southern end of Providence Road was the Queen City’s outskirts, the couple has navigated twists and turns in the restaurant industry. But those paled in comparison to the challenges brought by COVID-19 last year.
The pandemic has decimated the restaurant industry. It closed indoor dining for a time, slashed staffs and severed supply chains. Washington, D.C.-based National Restaurant Association estimated that nearly one in six U.S. restaurants — about 100,000 — closed during the pandemic’s first six months. When vaccines became widely available and dining rooms began reopening, many restaurant owners welcomed back hungry customers but struggled to reassemble their staff.
The Edwardses are restaurant veterans, proficient at adjusting, rebranding and surviving. But the past 18 months tested those skills. “I do realize I’m in a very fortunate position,” Chris says. “A lot of restaurants got the [federal Paycheck Protection Program] money and had to use it to stay open, to stay in business. I was able to use it to make up shortcomings and have a great customer base. I’m very blessed. We kept making decisions and kept moving forward … . It’s not anything unique to us. It’s what the whole restaurant industry has been through the past year.”
-Chris Edwards
Dakotas was a high-end seafood and steak restaurant with tasting menus and formal ambience. “We had the fancy stuff, and it got fancier and fancier to where we were serving a $75 meal that took two-and-a-half hours to eat,” Chris says. “I don’t know that Dakotas would have survived the 2008 [Great Recession] with that price range and us not being downtown, at the downtown price point.”
While New South occupies the same space as Dakotas, it’s something altogether different: a local gathering spot that serves Southern comfort food. “We were simply going to do a remodel, but when we got into the process, we realized we were changing more than we were keeping,” Chris says. “The beginning was not so well-received as far as taking our existing customers and adjusting to the challenge of a new basic clientele that was going to support us.”
New South’s menu includes a few Dakotas dishes and plenty of new ones, including sandwiches, fried chicken and meatloaf. It has established a loyal customer base in a shopping center that grows busier by the day. “[It has] a huge amount of traffic but limited walkability,” Chris says. “People drive out there for a specific reason.”
This photo was taken at Triple C Brewing while doing a tasting in preparation for an upcoming New South beer dinner. Pictured left toright: Scott Snead, Leah Limper, Kelsey Edwards, Sue Edwards, ChrisEdwards, Walter Drozd, Kaity Garner, Spencer Ingram, and Chris Fletcher.
When the pandemic arrived in March 2020, New South’s customer volume was cut in half. But Gov. Cooper’s response, which included restrictions on inside dining, brought opportunity and renewed Chris’ determination. “We closed for the afternoon and had a meeting of the minds and put a plan together and said the next day we’d be open for business as to-go orders, and we’ll see how it goes,” he says. “We had no idea what we were dealing with and what was on the horizon and what kind of support we’d get from our regular customers.”
The pandemic has rerouted the road to success for restaurants. But Chris knows what direction to go. “Back in the day, you opened a restaurant and said, ‘These are the seats, and this is the people we need.’ And now it’s flipped upside down to these are the people we have, so this is what we want to serve,” he says. “What products can we get, and how many people does it take to produce this? The labor shortage seems to be everywhere. We have supply chain issues as well, like who’s in the factory? Who’s going to drive the truck? As difficult as it is, it’s not just us. So, I said, ‘Guys, let’s focus on what we can within these four walls.’”
The Edwardses had 28 employees in March 2020, some fulltime and some part-time, and initially laid off everyone. But after three weeks, they brought back three cooks and a dishwasher then a few servers to take orders and deliver them to customers’ cars. Instead of 28 paychecks, they were writing eight or nine. “That was the terrifying part, the first month,” Chris says. “Can you sell enough to-go food to support the business? We cut our menu in half. We kept the salmon but didn’t have the other four or five seafood selections. We had to think, ‘What can we put in boxes and what will re-heat well?’ Those were things to deal with. I remember when the governor came on with his announcement. We just had our [delivery] trucks loaded with our groceries. Then we had to close. But because it was just me and my wife, we could come up with menus every day without going through a corporate office.”
New South received two PPP loans — $85,000 and $115,000 — and almost $200,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund. “Basically, with all that, it made us whole,” Chris says. The $85,000 loan was forgiven. The rent was paid. With the second PPP loan and the Revitalization funds, he says, “I have money to survive. If the Delta variant turns things sideways again, we’ll be OK.”
Chris spends time on chef duty now, and his back-of-house staff is in place. They’re each making about $900 weekly, and he’s offering a $1,000 sign-on bonus. Front-of-house staff numbers are down because of the labor shortage. And developing concerns about the virus’s Delta variant are hurting sales. “Some things are back to what I hope will be normal,” he says. “We’re closed Mondays, and we’re back to a five-day work week. The abbreviated menu thing, I kind of like that.” He also supports other local businesses, including buying produce from a nearby farmer’s market. “I’m blessed to be able to keep things moving,” he says. “I enjoy the business.” ■
