Facing precipitous drops in revenue, local restaurant owners rely on inventive ideas and new distribution models to stay in operation during the pandemic. By Laura Hayes Photos by Darrow Montgomery
Pizza ready and waiting at 2Amys
The COVID-19 pandemic has been an exercise in throwing ideas against the walls of empty dining rooms and seeing what sticks. Restaurant owners morphed into makeshift grocers when supermarket shelves were sparsely stocked, figured out how to deliver margaritas by the quart, and cheekily seated stuffed animals at tables left vacant to comply with capacity limits on indoor dining. To borrow a phrase from Billy Beane in Moneyball, these businesses must “adapt or die.” Nearly one in six U.S. restaurants have closed permanently or indefinitely six months into a public health crisis people initially hoped would only last weeks. That’s approximately 100,000 closures, according to the National Restaurant Association. The trade group’s survey-based report, released in mid-September, also found 40 percent of restaurant owners don’t think they’ll be in business in another six months without additional relief from the federal government. Restaurant owners and workers say their anxiety is at its highest level since March. Fall’s first cold snap hearkens the coming of winter and its challenges. There could be a second spike in cases that throws D.C.’s phased reopening process into reverse. Outdoor spaces, which have emerged as the safest and most desirable places to sit, are expensive to winterize, even with a new
$4 million grant program from the city. Demand for heaters is already wiping out the supply. Some local operators are capitulating, including Ian and Eric Hilton. On Halloween, they will close seven of their bars and restaurants for the foreseeable future. “With colder weather a few weeks away and no prospects for relief in sight, we think it makes sense to ramp things down and give potentially displaced members of the team time to look at other employment opportunities,” Ian told City Paper on Sept. 15. Those employees won’t find jobs at Capitol Lounge, Rebellion, BBQ Bus Smokehouse, Poca Madre, Taco Bamba on I Street NW, or Matchbox on 14th Street NW, which all closed in September. While any attempt to innovate amid uncertainty is worthwhile, the time to distinguish between half-baked pivots and fully executed pirouettes is now. Several strategies restaurants and bars have utilized have proven to be more successful than others, especially if success is measured in new and different ways. That could mean finding a way to sustain operations long enough to see the other side of the pandemic, bringing in enough money to employ as many people as possible, or finding ways to keep staff and customers healthy. The following approaches, which focus on takeout and delivery instead of dine-in business, aim to
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achieve one or more of these goals. The restaurants that test them provide diners with plenty of fun, unexpected, and interactive meals.
GHOST STORIES
A Shaw Mexican restaurant known for its mezcal cocktails and mole negro tried its hand at hawking burgers and cheesesteaks to bolster sales and couldn’t believe the immediate and sustained results. “We thought we were going to do maybe $5,000 in Ghostburger sales per week,” says Espita managing partner Josh Phillips. “The first week we did $25,000.” Ghostburger is the name of Espita’s “virtual” or “ghost” restaurant that debuted in August. These kinds of enterprises operate out of and alongside existing licensed eateries and use the same labor and equipment. The offerings are available for takeout or delivery. Some operators use these restaurants to try out new cuisines, while others repackage their current menu under new names. An increasing number of establishments are experimenting with virtual restaurants because a fresh brand has the potential to attract new customers and drive revenue without significant overhead costs. Launching one requires testing recipes, sourcing new ingredients,
training staff, and marketing a nascent brand. The elbow grease has paid off for Espita, which only needed two weeks to birth Ghostburger. Espita had been averaging $40,000 in weekly sales in Phase Two of D.C.’s reopening. Once Ghostburger was part of the equation, that figure climbed to $62,000. In strong months, when there’s not a global pandemic, Espita typically pulls in $61,000 in sales; slower summer months land closer to $48,000. The addition of the ghost restaurant helped Espita exceed its pre-pandemic average weekly sales and allowed the restaurant to hire back five employees. Ghostburger is also Espita’s cold weather insurance policy. “What happens if we’re just left with takeaway when cases spike in the winter?” Phillips asks. He recalls the tough months early in the pandemic when restaurants were limited to takeout and delivery, and Espita was only bringing in $8,000 per week. “That’s about 12 percent of what we normally do,” he says. “If we go to a takeaway-only scenario in the winter, how are we going to live on that?” Building a following for Ghostburger before winter was crucial. Its launch coincided with the return of Espita’s star chef Robert Aikens, who had been cooking in New York City at Verōnika and Pastis. Earlier in his career, he set out to
