By Mark Webber | The Republic The Johnny Carino’s restaurant in Columbus has closed and moving trucks were at the restaurant on Oct. 11, 2023.
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on local restaurants and other food-service businesses.
Within three months of the first confirmed case of the virus in Bartholomew County, nine local restaurants or other similar businesses had closed, and employment in the sector had tumbled 29%, according to data from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. By mid-2021, a total of 21 such establishments had closed.
Now, more than three years since the pandemic struck, state records show there are still 11 fewer dining establishments in Bartholomew County than before the pandemic.
But local restaurants and other food-service businesses say they have adapted to the altered dining landscape in the community as they still contend with challenging industry conditions, including inflation and labor shortages.
Some local restaurateurs say they are still seeing less foot traffic than before the pandemic but are now doing more deliveries, curbside pickup, or catering than ever, while others say in-person dining is now at or exceeding pre-pandemic levels.
Gramz Bakery, 409 Washington St., said its business has shifted somewhat since the pandemic, with the bakery offering deliveries via GrubHub and DoorDash and growing its catering business, said manager Rachelle Cole.
“The traffic flow is about 50% of what it used to be,” Cole said. “Now, we do a lot more catering and birthday cakes. … We do a lot more deliveries. Pre-pandemic, delivery was minimal. Every so often we might get a request once a month. Now, we have courier services, which we didn’t have before, and they take care of all the deliveries for us. We do several (deliveries) a day now. And call-ins and curbsides, we do quite a few.”
Cole said it is still a challenge to find workers and suspects that many potential employees are looking for jobs they can do from home. At the same time, she said the bakery has been dealing with increased food costs.
“Before the pandemic, we were paying $19 for 10 pounds of bacon, and now it’s like $53,” Cole said. “… And butter was $1.99, and now it teeters between $3.50 to $4.25. … But we make everything from scratch and have a flexible menu, so we’ve been able to kind of keep our prices very close to what they were before.”
Fresh Take Kitchen, 424 Washington St., which closed temporarily during part of the pandemic, said downtown workers who were working from home or elsewhere are continuing to trickle back, though the restaurant is still seeing less foot traffic than before the pandemic, said manager Tucker Schwarze, whose parents own the restaurant and Fourth Street Bar and Grill.
“We’ve slowly started to see people coming back,” Schwarze said. “We’re now about half as busy as we were before COVID. So, we’ve still got a little way to go. Cummins and other businesses downtown are coming back slowly at least Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays.”
Schwarze said they also have seen significant volatility in food costs since the pandemic struck. For instance, a case of 24 heads of iceberg lettuce or romaine lettuce generally cost about $20 to $30 before the pandemic, he said. Earlier this year, the cost to buy the same amount of lettuce had risen to about $120, though it has now dropped to about $50.
He said the restaurant recently hired two new workers after looking for a couple of months, but Fourth Street Bar & Grill has been looking for kitchen staff for about six months but to no avail.
“It’s a hassle to even get people to show up to an interview,” Schwarze said.
The Upland Columbus Pump House, 148 Lindsey St., has seen in-person dining largely return to pre-pandemic levels due to corporate events and parties held at restaurant, said general manager Joseph Palacios. Takeout and curbside pickup orders are a “minimal” part of sales, he said.
“With our location being such a huge attraction and being a historic building, I think we still ended up getting kind of close to the same amount of people that we’ve been seeing throughout the years before the pandemic,” Palacios said. “… We see more of people gathering at our location than we do for takeout.”
Jill’s Downtown Diner, 421 Seventh St., which had temporarily closed its doors during parts of the pandemic, is now seeing what an employee described as a boom.
“We’re at record highs when it comes to our sales,” said employee Ashley Cundiff, who also is daughter of the restaurant’s owner. “…Our sales have definitely increased since we opened back up after the pandemic. Other than that, the cost of our stock has also increased.”
Trends in dining
Experts say that the experiences of local dining establishments somewhat reflect trends playing out across the country as many restaurants continue to recover from the pandemic, brief recession and inflation, and some consider permanently adopting some of the solutions to challenges they faced during the pandemic.
The National Restaurant Association, a trade group that advocates for the industry, said earlier this year that restaurant operators across the country are exploring ways to expand delivery service, drive-thru lanes, online ordering and digital payment options. The association also pointed to a survey it conducted that found that 66% of adult consumers say they are likelier to order takeout than they were before the pandemic.
“Traditionally, I think when you and I might have thought of a restaurant, we would have generally thought of going into a place, sitting at a table, having an individual engage with us, or perhaps walking through a line and selecting our food and going to a table,” said John Talbott, director of the Center for Education and Research in Retail and a senior lecturer at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. “… Now, almost everybody is working with a delivery service or doing delivery themselves. They have an area within the restaurant where people can walk up and pick up things.”
“Some of the things that happened during the pandemic that I think have really changed the restaurant landscape prospectively,” he added. “… If you were coming up with a restaurant concept today, you would probably bake into that some mechanism for delivery and pick-up.”
Closures
The restaurant and food service industry in the United States was hit particularly hard during the pandemic.
During roughly the first year of the pandemic, several million restaurant employees in the United States were laid off or furloughed, according to the National Restaurant Association. By spring 2021, the association estimated that 90,000 restaurants had closed.
In late 2020, the Indiana Restaurant and Lodging Association said about 20% of restaurants in the Hoosier State had closed. Locally, there have been several restaurant closures since the pandemic struck, including a couple that received federal aid.
In July 2020, Skooter’s Family Restaurant, which had been in business for nearly a half-century, closed its doors for good due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Republic reported previously. A few months later, Sirloin Stockade closed its doors for the final time.
In late 2021, Joe Willy’s Burger Bar closed for the season and a for sale sign was posted on the property some time later. Last year, Indiana Smokehouse announced on social media that it was closing. Both of those restaurants received federal pandemic assistance.
Indiana Smokehouse received $291,039 in federal aid in 2020 and 2021, according to the SBA. That included a $41,875 forgivable loan through the Paycheck Protection Program on May 1, 2020, and another $58,625 forgivable loan through the same program on Jan. 22, 2021, as well as an additional $190,539 through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
Joe Willy’s closed just months after receiving $22,834 through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund and about a year and a half after receiving a $115,795 forgivable loan through the Paycheck Protection Program.
Earlier this year, Lafayette-based restaurant chain Arni’s closed after 30 years in Columbus, with co-owner Kurt Cohen telling The Republic that the closure was “another casualty of COVID.”
So far this month, two more restaurants have closed — Johnny Carino’s, which had been in Columbus since 2004, and Chuck E. Cheese, which had been in business since around 2005.
Johnny Carino’s general manager Quentin Smith said increased rent fueled by inflation contributed to the location’s closure. “When the rent goes up and (declining) sales don’t match it, you can’t run a business that doesn’t make money,” he said.
Chuck E. Cheese filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2020 largely due to the pandemic. Multiple news organizations estimate the company found itself between $1 billion and $2 billion in debt when social distancing restrictions prevented or discouraged parents from bringing their children to franchise locations.
Uneven recovery
Earlier this month, the National Restaurant Association reported that the industry’s workforce had returned to pre-pandemic levels in September. Locally, there were 76 fewer workers employed locally in the sector during the first three months of this year compared to the first quarter of 2020, though local employment in the industry had slightly exceeded pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter of 2022, according to state records.
At the same time, labor costs in Bartholomew County had risen. For instance, local restaurants and other food-service businesses reported spending 23% more in wages during the first quarter this year compared to the first quarter of 2020, while the number of people employed in the sector was down 2.2% from the first three months of 2020.
But as the industry adjusts the post-pandemic world, the road to recovery in the industry has not been uniform across the country, said Rebecca Spang, a historian at Indiana University who studies the history of restaurants.
“What’s interesting is how different (restaurant recovery) looks in different locations,” Spang said. “So, the New York City or the Las Vegas or the Houston restaurant scene are as sort of crazy buzzy as they were before the pandemic, but in a smaller town … the situation is quite different.”
“Clearly, recovery from (the pandemic, brief recession and inflation) has not been uniform across the country,” she added.
