Bob Luz, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, addresses concerns of restaurant owners amid coronavirus outbreak. (Yiming Zhao/Sampan)
Sumiao Chen, the owner of restaurant Sumiao Hunan Kitchen in Cambridge opened a bottle of wine after meeting with the Massachusetts Restaurant Association on March 12 at her restaurant.
“I’m disinfecting my mouth,” she joked.
In the past week, Chen has seen a 40 percent drop in business, especially after Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency due to the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus on March 10. She said the restaurant’s proximity to Biogen, the company linked to 70 confirmed cases in Massachusetts, is scaring customers away.
With Harvard University and MIT closing dorms and campuses, the situation is going to get worse since most of her regular customers are students. Other restaurants in Boston also face the same problem as BU, BC, Northeastern, Suffolk, Emerson and many other colleges are closing campuses and moving classes online.
The owner of Love Art Restaurant Group, Ronald Liu, is losing 70 percent of his staff because colleges are closing their dorms and students are leaving Boston on short notice.
As the owner of a Chinese restaurant, Chen started to see the impact of Covid-19 before many others in Massachusetts. Compounding her challenges, she is short on ingredients that she usually imports from China. Employees have also been resistant to coming to work in fear of the virus. She said her staff has told her that their families don’t want them to work in a restaurant during this time.
Chen has begun coming to the restaurant every day even if she doesn’t need to in order to reassure her staff members that they’re in this together. Even though she has faith in her business and staff, Chen still has to lay off 30 to 40 staff members, keeping only three managers and around 10 people in the kitchen. She will provide them with one week of extra pay and health insurance coverage.
Bob Luz, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, explained that restaurant owners legally will be obligated to pay for vacation days when they lay off employees but are not required to pay for sick days.
Gov. Baker announced over the weekend that restaurants will only be able to serve take-out or delivery food starting March 17. Luz advises restaurant owners, especially Chinese restaurant owners, to promote to-go and delivery service.
“I’ve never seen any cuisine that travels as well as Asian food,” said Luz.
Chen has already been working on a simplified menu that caters better to take-out service and has spent $50,000 stocking up on take-out boxes.
In the meantime, Luz advises restaurant owners to keep up with the latest news and regulations. “I used to say we live day by day, but now it’s hour by hour.”
