Can the Restaurant Industry Be Saved?

It is one of the more surreal examples of how the pandemic has thoroughly upended New York’s storied culinary scene, where some 26,000 restaurants and their 350,000 workers are scrambling to pay rent, feed their families, and figure out whether there will be a job for them to come back to — and to what extent the industry will resemble the one the virus swept away, like a natural disaster, in March.

This has to change if independent restaurants stand any chance of surviving the coronavirus and its potentially yearslong tail of adverse effects. Inon March 24th, a group of high-profile New York chefs and restaurateurs estimated that 75 percent of the nation’s independent restaurants wouldn’t be able to open without a more robust relief package than what Congress was offering.

Restaurants able to reopen will face unprecedented headwinds. An impending recession will mean less disposable income. Add to that a lingering hesitancy to gather in confined spaces, as well as the possibility of additional waves of the coronavirus that could lead to more stay-at-home orders. Delivery is going to only grow in popularity. So could cooking at home, an appreciation for which is increasing while Americans are in quarantine.

In the short term, Eleven Madison Park’s collaboration with Rethink is both feeding those in need and providing a cash infusion — with the help of sponsors American Express and Resy — that has allowed Humm to rehire some of his staff. Humm doesn’t see why the model can’t be permanent. “Food and hunger are obvious things in front of me,” he says. “We’re now producing 3,000 meals a day. There are only 12 people here. In a way it’s a pretty easy lift.

Restaurants’ survival might depend on such holistic, outside-the-box efforts that stem from a desire not just for financial solvency but also to foster community and, of course, feed people — which is why most restaurateurs got into the business in the first place. The pandemic has led many to ruminate on whether those core purposes will be able to continue as the industry reconfigures itself amid the largest crisis it has ever faced.

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