Woytek 1

Alexis Woytek

ENC-1102

14 April 2021

Coronavirus Pandemic Effect on Small Restaurant Businesses

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a major loss taken on by small

restaurant businesses across the world. Two events took place across the nation specifically, one,

massive layoffs were required by small business restaurants once lockdown was in place, and

two the loss of income resulted in permanent closures for many in the small restaurant business

industry (PNAS). These two immediate events started a chain of reactions impacting the industry

for months to come. The different stages of lockdowns, regulations and safety guidelines, due to

the pandemic, left these businesses scrambling. In my research paper I will be illustrating the

different periods of the pandemic and examine the effects of small restaurant businesses

responses. My research question is; what impact did the coronavirus pandemic have on small

businesses and what action steps were taken by small businesses in order to be successful during

the different stages of the pandemic? I will specifically be focusing on three states; Florida, New

York and California, to get a diverse read on the different regions of the country and how small

restaurant businesses handled the pandemic. These three states specifically had some of the

highest daily cases throughout the pandemic and all opened up at different rates. The type of

research I focused on were official government documents and various news articles on the three

states. I gathered sources from the governor offices of the three states that were issued giving

guidelines on how their states citizens should handle the pandemic. These types of sources
 Woytek 2

helped me understand the reasoning behind each state's rules and regulations along with what the

small restaurant businesses were challenged with.

Fig 1:

Screenshot from JPMorgan Chase Institute website taken April 12, 2021

Visual showing the difference between revenue and expenses for restaurants during the

pandemic:

NEW YORK- Lockdown, Restrictions, Impact on Small Restaurant Businesses

The state of New York and specifically New York City, was hit incredibly hard by the

coronavirus pandemic. New York set records in cases and deaths per day as a state. Traveling to

and from New York was put on pause to try and bring cases down, the city was put on lockdown

for several weeks in March and into April. March 7, 2020 the governor of New York issued a

state of emergency because the number of cases were so severe, continuing on March 16, 2020
 Woytek 3

he banned eating at restaurants statewide (govonor.ny.gov). The governor then started to require

restaurants to have CDC approved ventilation systems before reopening at the beginning of the

pandemic because it helps reduce the spread of covid inside. Businesses had little funding to

make many heavily priced accommodations and still were not able to open for indoor seating yet.

While the city was in lockdown many restaurants were not even able to do takeout orders

because they did not want staff at the restaurants. Once they were allowed back at work takeout

and delivery options were restaurants' only source of income. Through services like Doordash,

Uber Eats and GrubHub customers were able to order food from their local restaurants and help

them during their desperate times while that pandemic was continuing to kill their restaurants.

On February 12, 2021 New York City was able to open their restaurants for indoor dining at 25

percent capacity. This is almost a year since the city had to go into lockdown, many businesses

struggled to survive and many employees were laid off. The only way for businesses to reopen

was by following lengthy steps following set guides and procedures. Some of these protocols

include, checking customers temperatures at the door, everyone wearing face coverings unless

actively eating or drinking and collecting contact information from at least one member of the

party for contact tracing (nyc.gov). Currently, the state of New York in door dining policy is

open to 50 percent capacity. Clearly, this is very different from the state of Florida who has been

at 100 percent capacity for months. According to an article by the New York Times, “⅓ of New

York's Small Businesses May be Gone Forever”. With lockdowns imposed for an extended

period of time and little funding available the small businesses in New York were unable to keep

up with high rent and were forced to shut down. New York City has a major population and the

extended lockdowns were needed to help stop the spread of covid. This cost many small business

owners their business. There was little innovation that business owners could do when finding
 Woytek 4

ways to stay profitable because it was winter time for a majority of the pandemic making it

difficult to have outdoor seating. Overall, the state of New York is still recovering from the

pandemic and still reopening in order to have customers back in their restaurants. Many

businesses and employees suffered and are still suffering because they are unable to fully reopen

yet.

Fig 2: Screenshot from

nyc.gov website taken

April 12, 2021

This screenshot published by the New York Governor's office shows specifically what the

requirements were for restaurants to operate.

CALIFORNIA- Lockdown, Regulations, Impact on Small Restaurant Businesses

To continue, the state of California has the largest population in all of the United States

of America. This means that they were most vulnerable for spreading the virus naturally because
 Woytek 5

they have such a massive population and it is hard to contain a virus with that many people. On

March 19, 2020 a statewide lockdown was issued by the State Public Health Officer and Director

of the California Department of Public Health (covid19.ca.gov). They classified different areas

of California based on color, purple being the strictest with no indoor operations whatsoever and

yellow being the least restrictive allowing for indoor operations at 50 percent capacity along with

standard social distancing practice. These different levels accommodated to the different regions

of California, Los Angeles was purple and the more rural parts were yellow. This classification

severely impacted the small businesses specifically located in LA, one of their most heavily

populated cities. One of the main contributing factors of these small businesses losing business is

the lack of foot traffic. With other businesses being shut down like movie theaters and shops it is

difficult for small restaurants to get people to walk by their restaurants. When being a small

business in a major city it is hard to get established and get your name out to many customers,

that is why location is a major priority. These restaurant small businesses set up shop in popular

areas with activities around them to get people to stop by. However, with the pandemic all the

places around them were closed and causing business to go down dramatically. In my research

for the state of California specifically, one website I found useful was “open table”. It allows

anyone to see what restaurants are open to support small businesses. This website was designed

to get customers back into these small businesses or bring awards to their menus for takeout

options because of limited dine in options. California is not fully open for all the restaurants to

have more than 50 percent capacity for indoor dining. Some California small businesses are

mainly relying on takeout and delivery. This is a popular method because it focuses on

convenience for their customers and still allows them to bring in profit.
 Woytek 6

Overall, the majority of California is not open to their customers for indoor dining only some

based on very specific rules and regulations most similar to New York. California’s small

restaurant businesses have faced many closures and layoffs similarly to New York as well due to

extended lockdowns due to the risk of spreading covid-19. Overall, the state of California is still

in the process of reopening their businesses and these small business restaurants have to

strategize to the best of their ability to get their product out there through delivery and takeout if

they want to survive the rest of the pandemic.

Fig 3: Screenshot taken from covid19.ca.gov website taken April 12, 2021

This screenshot taken from the California Governor's office shows the specific guidelines

published for their businesses to follow.

 Woytek 7

FLORIDA - Timeline, Rules and Regulations, Small Restaurant Innovations:

Lastly, the state of Florida has had many safety guidelines and rules put in place to help

slow the spread of the pandemic despite the fact that they reopened relatively early compared to

many other states. More populated counties had to open up a little later to make sure all

necessary precautions were taken cautiously. Florida restaurants began reopening for dine in

around the beginning of May 2020 (Orlando Weekly). The state of Florida is warm for most

parts of the year so one innovation many Florida restaurant businesses did was they utilized their

outdoor seating option. They could serve as many people as they could outside, as long as they

had enough space for distancing six feet between parties at all times. This brought back a lot of

customers and helped save many small businesses from closure while getting some employees

back to work. Many small businesses used what little funding and money they had to build better

outdoor seating structures to seat as many customers as they could. Now that these restaurants

are open to full capacity they are bringing in much more profits because of the added outdoor

seating that was created at the start of the pandemic. Inside seating started at only 25 percent

capacity and every few weeks at a time they would reopen for a discussion to increase capacity

based on the county. They increased indoor seating capacity based on which counties had

continued decreasing positive COVID cases. With this process of gradual reopening many of the

restaurant's staff were still not employed or let go permanently unfortunately after a period of

time. Another innovation utilized by Florida restaurants was putting up plexy glass between

tables to have protection between parties when eating allowing for a higher capacity. It is critical

to note that in order for these businesses to remain open covid-19 procedures must be followed at

all times. Even though they are open to 100 percent capacity, employees must wear protective

equipment like masks at all times. Additionally, the state of Florida also has a major tourism
 Woytek 8

industry that forced many small business restaurants near beaches and popular tourist

destinations to close because no one was taking vacations for an extended period of time due to

the pandemic. The governor of Florida (Ron DeSantis) was adamant about reopening the state

because without tourism there would be little inflow of funds and our economy would continue

to downfall. The lack of tourists coming into the state resulted in a loss of small businesses in

major tourism destinations, however not as many as the other states I have discussed in my

paper. Overall, the rapid reopening of the state helped prevent many closures of small businesses

and still allowed them to be profitable.

Fig 4: Screenshot from

Floridahealth.gov website taken April 12, 2021

This screenshot taken from Florida Health website shows the specific guidelines for their

businesses to follow.
 Woytek 9

CONCLUSION:

In order for these businesses to move forward the rapid rollout of these vaccines will help

these major states like New York and California to reopen indoor dining to bring profit back

what small businesses are left with. They utilized innovations like outdoor seating and takeout to

the best of their ability to avoid closures. The three states showed the different impact the small

restaurant businesses faced during the pandemic. Florida businesses opened up quickly after the

pandemic and have since recovered fairly well with minimal closures overall. The various

innovations and utilizing outdoor seats found businesses to be profitable now they are open 100

percent. New York with time will soon have all businesses open at a higher capacity to

hopefully prevent even more businesses from shutting down. Additionally, if travel restrictions

improve more tourists will be able to return to the city and bring back the economy. Lastly,

California with the massive distributions of the vaccines they will be able to get indoor seating at

all restaurants eventually. The clear differences between the three states show how they were all

affected by the pandemic and how these businesses are recovering or starting to build back since

the start of the pandemic over a year ago. After reviewing my findings in three states and their

handling of the coronavirus pandemic I recommend these small restaurant businesses getting

their product promoted through social media to promote take-out and delivery. Eventually, with

indoor dining available still utilize the outdoor seating to accommodate all customers to bring in

higher profits. Focusing my overall research on a on going issue small businesses are facing in

the pandemic many were able to adapt and move forward through the pandemic. It is important

to note that it is not the case that many of these businesses are now closed forever. We only hope

to grow from this tragedy and hope to better manage and adapt in the future.
 Woytek 10

Works Cited:

Bartik, A., Bertrand, M., Cullen, Z., Glaeser, E., Luca, M. and Stanton, C., 2021. The

impact of COVID-19 on small business outcomes and expectations. Available at:

www.pnas.org/content/117/30/17656.short

Files.covid19.ca.gov. 2021. [online] Available at:

<https://files.covid19.ca.gov/pdf/guidance-dine-in-restaurants.pdf> [Accessed 25

February 2021]

Floridahealth.gov. 2021. The State of Florida Issues Updates on COVID-19 | Florida

Department of Health. [online] Available at:

<http://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2020/03/031720-2152-

covid19.pr.html#:~:text=Restaurants%20across%20the%20state%20of,the

%20website%20for%20DBPR.> [Accessed 25 February 2021]

Governor.ny.gov. 2021. [online] Available at:

<https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/governor.ny.gov/files/atoms/files/NYC_Indo

or_Food_Services_Detailed_Guidance.pdf> [Accessed 25 February 2021]

Hagerty, M., 2021. Sacramento Business Journal: The Impact Of Coronavirus

Restrictions On Local Businesses. [online] Capradio.org. Available at:

<https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/11/20/sacramento-business-journal-the-

impact-of-coronavirus-restrictions-on-local-businesses/> [Accessed 25 February

2021]
 Woytek 11

nyc.gov. 2021. NYC Restaurant Reopening Guide - NYC Business. [online]

Available at: <https://www1.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/article/nyc-restaurant-

reopening-guide> [Accessed 25 February 2021]

OpenTable Blog. 2021. A State-by-State Guide to Where Restaurants Are Open After

Coronavirus. [online] Available at: <https://blog.opentable.com/2021/states-

provinces-restaurants-reopen-guide-coronavirus/> [Accessed 24 February 2021]

Turner, J., 2021. These are the rules Florida restaurants must follow to reopen Monday.

[online] Orlando Weekly. Available at:

<https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2020/05/02/these-are-the-rules-

florida-restaurants-must-follow-to-reopen-monday> [Accessed 25 February 2021]