With Colorado Restaurants In Limbo, Owners Are Cautious About Future Plans
DENVER (CBS4) - On a normal Cinco de Mayo, the patio of Lola Coastal Mexican in Denver's LoHi neighborhood is so crowded people need to shout to hear over the band and excited patrons.
This year, the restaurant was nearly empty with just a few employees serving margaritas and guacamole for a pop-up event. Since the coronavirus pandemic hit, Lola hasn't been open for normal service.
"Cinco de Mayo, a little bit different. Usually we wouldn't be able to hear ourselves scream. We have done a patio pop-up where we put a menu online and folks can order their food, backyard grill kits," said Dave Query with the Big Red F restaurant group. "We will be opening a to-go little market on the corner here in the next two weeks."
Big Red F operates 16 restaurants in Colorado and beyond, including Jax Fish House and Post Brewing Company. Being weeks away from starting a take-out window, the restaurant group believes it will be quite a long time before in-house dining returns to Colorado restaurants.
"This patio is going to be empty for a while, all of our patios will be empty. We're going to be slow on the rebound. We're going to patiently watch and learn from everybody. We're not in any hurry to run back into this. It's kind of crucial for all businesses, but restaurants in particular, you can't lose money coming out of this," Query said.
But he admits, the limited pop-up events and take-out or delivery offered at other locations is barely paying the bills.
"We're just doing whatever we can. I'll sell you the screwdriver in my pocket if you want to buy it," Query joked. "This keeps us relatively stable. It keeps our salaried employees getting paid. All of our tips from this and our daily service we're putting into a fund. We've helped about 50 or 60 of our folks with that fund. It keeps us stable, being open to-go and doing these pop-ups keeps us from hemorrhaging cash."
Query is hopeful that some restaurants he oversees can reopen their dining rooms next month. He specifically cited locations with large areas. But some of Big Red F's locations are more condensed.
"At times you might as well stay doing takeout, but you want to get your staff back to work. So it's a balance of how to best judge. In the case of our smaller, tighter, very tight restaurants it might not be until the end of the summer. It just doesn't work in a 16-foot-wide, 120-foot-long restaurant. It doesn't work in a pandemic," he said.
Query and his wife had COVID-19 in mid-March. Both have recovered and are doing well. He says it's changed his outlook on how to get the business through the rest of the year.
"There's opportunity in this," Query said. "Now is the time to be amazing and outrageous to everybody's best abilities."