Little Cocos interior (Photo: Lindsay Hogan)

by Austin Schott

I chatted with Jackie Greenbaum, co-owner of the 14th Street Italian eatery Little Cocos, last week about her reopening plans. She said, “We're following the lead of our staff. Obviously that's most important to us.”

The next day, I chatted with Matt Krimm of Cinder BBQ, on Upshur Street, who said, in considering his reopening strategy, employee safety was “paramount.”

Restaurants in Petworth are excited to move towards the pre-pandemic “normal,” but they acknowledge that normal may still be a ways off — even with increased vaccine distribution in DC and the Mayor’s decision to allow restaurants to return to 100% capacity. With that in mind, they are ensuring their staff comes first.

“We rolled in a little bit slower because we wanted to make sure all of our staff had been vaccinated and that it had been two weeks since the last staff had been vaccinated,” Greenbaum said. All of Greenbaum’s DC-based restaurants and bars, including Little Cocos, Bar Charlie in Dupont, and El Chucho in Columbia Heights, are now operating at full capacity.

When it comes to mask policy, Greenbaum is similarly deferring to her employees’ preferences. Greenbaum shared that they religiously abided to Covid-protocols at the height of the pandemic. “So, I actually expected the staff to be queasy about moving into a new world with less regulations,” she told me. “But honestly, they have not been. And, to be frank, they're the ones who are taking the lead.” Greenbaum said they’re weaning themselves off mask restrictions across June.

On May 10th, Mayor Bowser announced that the city was lifting all Covid-restrictions on businesses by May 21. Some owners were caught off guard by the speed of reopening. Others welcomed Bowser’s messaging that, although the city would not be imposing blanket restrictions after May 21st, each restaurant can go at their own pace. “It doesn't mean everybody has to go to 100%. It means that you can grow and get to where you want to be,” said Krimm. “She messaged basically what we were going to say.”

After having their patio open for a few months, Cinder BBQ is slowly reopening inside seating. More staffing is needed to keep up.

Staffing and Supply Shortages
While restaurants allow more people indoors, restaurant owners are facing a new slate of challenges, particularly in finding sufficient staff and addressing price hikes from supply shortages.

Some restaurant owners hinted that there’s almost competition when every restaurant is starting to reopening all at once; all owners are drawing from the same labor pool for servers, cooks, and hosts.

Greenbaum told me that this employee base has also lost people to other trades and careers.

“A lot of the employees I had before the pandemic were already either segueing into another career or used the pandemic as an opportunity to go off into the career that they went to college for,” she said.

One of her former bar managers is now a full-time pilot and another former employee, who was part-time teaching before the pandemic, has transitioned into education full-time. Krimm shared something similar. His girlfriend, who was in catering, left the industry during the pandemic and pursued a career in supply chain management.

Krimm said others in this labor pool left DC during the height of restrictions. “People who really like the industry and left the area and went to places that were open where they could work,” he told me. People relocated to other regions that were more open, and which tended to be cheaper places to live too, he said. “So, if you're making money and your cost of living is down 30%, you’re probably not coming back.”

Cinder is also trying to manage rising wholesale food prices, “Our brisket price is up almost 100% in eight weeks.” Krimm said the restaurant is trying to absorb the prices the best they can and hold off on increasing the prices on their menu.

“People think, ‘It's barbeque, it should be cheap,’ but we're using good ingredients and then the supply chain gets tightened and prices are up across the board. There’s not much we can do. So, it's a juggling act – you can’t charge $20 for a brisket sandwich right? It actually might be more stressful now than it was six months ago during the pandemic.”

New Experiences of Indoor Dining
At the same time there are real benefits of increased indoor dining. Eric Yoo, who owns Menya Hosaki on Upshur Street, shared how increased indoor dining changed his restaurant’s whole experience.

Eric Yoo preparing ramen at Menya Hosaki.

“The ramen counter is like a huge deal at in Japan,” he said. The experience of sitting at the bar and watching a chef prepare your food is a highlight of a ramen shop. “That’s the type of experience I dreamed of. When I built the shop it centered around my main stage, this kind of counter seating.”

Menya Hosaki opened in September 2020, so the dream of a bustling counter was delayed until recently. “It was heartbreaking, not to have that counter seating open.” But now Yoo can slowly increase his counter space, although he’s still stationing glass barriers across the bar as needed.

Yoo is also glad he was able to transition away a little from take-out.

“When I was running the pop-up, I was not planning on doing takeout. Ramen is best enjoyed in the house,” Yoo told Petworth News last year. (Menya Hosaki started as a pop-up restaurant out of Yoo’s father’s Annapolis deli.) “It’s hard to recreate the experience 100 percent through takeout.”

According to other area restaurant owners, getting employees is a major challenge as they reopen. Lulabelle’s Sweet Shop recently posted on Facebook that they were looking for staff.

The best residents can do is keep supporting the local restaurants and businesses as the city and consumers slowly transition away from Covid restrictions and its repercussions.