Two weeks after Pennsylvania restaurants began to offer outdoor dine-in service, many establishments continue to struggle financially.
Father’s Day marks one of the first major holidays since restaurants in yellow phase counties were able to start serving diners again, outdoors only, on June 5. Some families celebrated by dining out; for many, it was the first time eating at a sit-down restaurant in months.
Yet sighs of relief from struggling restaurants were muted, as employees reported fatigue from months of adapting to legally serve customers.
“At first we were just closed altogether, then we started doing takeout, then that changed into outdoor seating,” said Katie Hardesty, a server at Quips Pub in Lancaster. “And then this Friday we’re actually doing limited seating inside, too.”
Business is up since outdoor seating restarted, restaurant owners say.
“Coming on the deck helps us,” said Alex Mountis, owner of Conestoga Restaurant in Lancaster. “That’s our bulk of the business, is summer.”
Conestoga Restaurant offered a special menu for their Grab N’ Go Father’s Day BBQ, with both outdoor seating and a tent set up to deliver takeout orders directly to cars. However, Mountis said some tables had to be removed from the deck to observe social distancing rules.
“We could put another 80 people on the deck,” Mountis said.
The lower limit on the number of customers that can be seated is a strain on a restaurant already hurting from months of less business.
“It’s tough,” Mountis said. “I mean, it’s tough.”
Because there are fewer tables set up at most restaurants, servers who depend on tips are struggling to earn a living.
“It’s not enough [for a full-time server], no,” Hardesty said.
Still, loyal customers said they came out to support their local restaurants as much as possible.
“Depending on where you work and how you were impacted fiscally, I think is going to impact how willing you are to potentially pay maybe a little bit more for sitting in a restaurant so that they can make back some of their profit margin,” said Suzi Sutton of East Lampeter Township.
Indoor sit-down service can begin Friday in green counties. Though limited to 50 percent capacity, restaurant employees hoped the combined outdoor and indoor seating would help reduce further losses.