COVID-19 and Restaurants
Maxine, Marilyn, Keith and I have developed a dining ritual of sorts over the last 8 or 9 years: we go to Waterbar, the seafood restaurant on San Francisco’s Embarcadero, underneath the Bay Bridge, and have a couple dozen platters of the oysters du jour, with Champagne or Muscadet or some other suitable wine. The oysters during the lunch hour are only $1 each; with the spectacular views—the Bridge, sparkling San Francisco Bay, Treasure Island and, in the distance, the East Bay Hills and buildings of Oakland—it’s one of our favorite destinations, especially to celebrate a birthday.
This morning, I got an email from Waterbar. “We Miss You!” it said, advertising the restaurant’s “new Take-Home program,” starting June 4, and adding, “We will let you know as soon as we begin table service.” Well, my first thought was, I’m not going to go to Waterbar to buy oysters to take home. I can walk down the block and buy fresh oysters at Whole Foods—and they’ll even shuck them for me. The whole point of going to Waterbar is for the dine-in experience. But there’s hope! Waterbar is determined to re-open as soon as the local authorities—in their case, San Francisco’s Mayor and health officials—allow them to.
We don’t know when that will be. COVID-19 cases continue to rise in California, and there continue to be troubling “hot spots.” When restaurants are allowed to re-open, I think we all know the parameters they’ll be forced to adapt: masks (on servers and diners) and six-foot physical distancing, not to mention (probably) disposable knives and forks, paper napkins and salt and pepper packets instead of shakers. Of course, you can’t eat while wearing a mask, so how will that work out? And will we have to wear latex gloves? Will we still want to go to Waterbar under those less-than-glamorous circumstances? The view will be the same; the oysters and wine will be the same. But the experience will be less.
And there’s also the fear factor. Maxine, Marilyn, Keith and I all are senior citizens. Some of us have underlying health problems that increase our risk of getting COVID-19 and possibly dying of it. Will be feel comfortable in a public dining room, no matter how far apart the tables are? For that matter, would the four of us be able to sit at the little tables they have in the bar area (our favorite place), with so little distance between us? Part of the charm of Waterbar is bantering with the waitstaff. Will that feel comfortable?
It’s not just Waterbar. I’m going through the latest guidebook on San Francisco’s Top 100 Restaurants, from the S.F. Chronicle, and I have to admit I don’t see how some of these places will ever get back to normal. Take Atelier Crenn, the three-starred Michelin seafood-and-vegetable restaurant, where the tasting menu is $363 and, if you want wine, you’ll pay an additional $220. San Francisco is hemorrhaging jobs. It’s still a rich city (for the moment), but who’s going to be interested in paying close to $600 for dinner per person in our apocalyptic post-coronavirus environment? And the same considerations that apply to Waterbar apply to Atelier Crenn, with the masks and distancing and so on. Will people want to go there when it feels more like a hospital cafeteria?
Then there are steak houses, like the House of Prime Rib, a staple of carnivores for decades. The old-fashioned booths are spaced close together; the meat carvers pushing their tableside carts get right up close and personal to diners; and the conversation level is loud. It’s one thing to go to French Laundry and feel like you have to speak in a whisper or else the ghost of Escoffier will rise up and haunt you; but no one goes to a steak house to whisper. What will that experience be like, post-coronavirus?
And then there are communal-table places, like Lazy Bear. Two long tables sit 20 people each; bumping elbows and overhearing everyone’s conversations (and them overhearing yours) is part of the ambience. How does Lazy Bear crowd diners at communal tables post-COVID-19? Answer: They don’t.
Going through the Chronicle’s Top 100 restaurants is a sobering experience. How many will be forced to close forever? And it’s not only these top restaurants, it’s every place in town: dim sum palaces, sushi bars, burger joints, Afghan-style, Ethiopian food, fast food, kosher…no restaurant is safe. We’re already being told that such iconic institutions as public transit, the office-centered workplace and sports events are threatened, and will have to adapt to the new normal if they want to survive. The same applies to restaurants.
Well, there are more questions than answers, as usual. We’ll have to wait and see. But for a food-centered town like San Francisco, COVID-19 is a nightmare. How the City learns to adapt is completely unknown, but we do know one thing for sure: San Francisco will adapt. In one form or another, restaurants will survive. But to be honest, I don’t know about those multi-hundred dollar tasting menus. They might have met their match in COVID-19. That would be all right with me!
I agree. The whole restaurant experience is meant to be relaxing. Masks alone, defeat that purpose. Eating out is luxury I will forego until there’s more certainty not risking infection i.e. post vaccine. As restaurants were once my sole means of employment, I don’t say this lightly. I’m so grateful for the livelihood waiting tables gave me, until I was lucky enough to acquire other skills.
There are going to be a lot of unemployed restaurant servers in the coming days. Let us hope they’re able to acquire “other skills,” whatever they may be!