LEBANON — The day before Salt hill Pub’s busiest day of the year — St. Patrick’s Day — the restaurant group whose Irish-themed pubs are a convivial gathering spot in the Upper Valley, received terribly timed news: Gov. Chris Sununu, in step with other governors and mayors around the country, ordered the immediate closing of dine-in service at restaurants across New Hampshire because of the coronavirus pandemic.
With Salt hill Pub’s five locations suddenly ordered closed, “we’ve had to reduce staff greatly because there is zero table service. It’s pretty drastic. This affects the majority of our staff,” Salt hill owner Josh Tuohy said on Monday night from the dining room of the Lebanon Salt hill Pub, as a handful of customers enjoyed the last time they would be able to sit at the bar for the indefinite future.
“Everything was headed in this direction. We’d been discussing it for several days,” Tuohy said with an air of resignation. “There was a lot of tears today in the shift meetings.”
Sununu and his Vermont counterpart, Gov. Phil Scott, both allowed restaurants to continue to provide food to-go, but some restaurants are unable to make the switch, and even those who can have watched their revenues virtually disappear over night.
The resulting mass “furloughs,” as they are being called, are upending the lives of restaurant workers, many who live paycheck to paycheck and depend upon customer tips for the majority of their income.
Ashley Higgins, a bartender at Molly’s in Hanover who has worked in the restaurant business since she was 15 years old, said via email that “for the first time in my life I don’t know what to do or how to survive.”
She’s the mother of two kids, ages 6 and 9.
“We all knew that it would be only a matter of time,” Higgins, 30, said about Molly’s closing. She said that when she closed the bar on Monday night she picked up “many pity tips, which I’m so thankful for” and Molly’s owner, Blue Sky Restaurants — which also owns Jesse’s — “bought us all our meals and also offered us food in the coming weeks if we need help.”
Tony Barnett, the owner of Blue Sky Restaurants, said that Jesse’s has closed but Molly’s will remain open for takeout orders. A table has been set up behind Molly’s, and the town of Hanover reserved five parking spaces where customers can drive up to grab their orders.
Barnett said that he is now operating with 10 managers who are shifting to join the kitchen crew, but he has had to furlough 150 full-time and part-time employees. They have added a “heavily discounted” family-style takeout meal of 2 pounds of prime rib with sweet mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables that can feed four to five people for $30 — normally the cost of a single meal.
“Everyone’s in the same boat. A full-service restaurant is devastated right now,” he said, adding that he was nonetheless “more worried about helping employees navigate benefits” such unemployment.
Big or small, Upper Valley restaurants were scrambling in adapting to the ban on table-side customers.
On Tuesday morning, Shyrl’s Diner owner Shyrl Rafus was using the restaurant’s usual off-day to get ready to serve only food to go. The West Lebanon breakfast-and-lunch coffee shop, a favorite stop for construction industry workers, retirees and early birds, will be open for takeout from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m., Rafus said.
“We’re going to do takeout only and see what becomes of it,” she said.
“I have employees who need to keep working because they have bills to pay and I have bills to pay,” said Rafus, while her granddaughter, Kaleigh Magar finished drawing a sign to hang in the window that announces, “The show must go on. Open for take-out 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call-in preferred.”
“We prefer (customers) phone them in but if they don’t it’s not a big deal,” said Rafus, who also serves as the diner’s cook.
Sununu said Tuesday that the restaurant restrictions were crafted with neighboring Massachusetts in mind. The Bay State banned dining inside bars and restaurants and gatherings of more than 25 people on Sunday.
Sununu said he was warned of the potential for a “large influx of individuals out of Massachusetts and into Manchester, Portsmouth, some of the southern-tier cities, which could cause a lot of co-mingling.”
The governor said he was “proactively calling” businesses and restaurants that would be affected by the restrictions.
“I think it’s very tough for a lot of them, to be sure,” he said during a news conference Tuesday morning in Concord. “They understand why some of these actions have to be taken.”
He went on to say that there are some businesses that won’t be able to offer takeout or drive-thru services. Others closed before the governor’s announcement.
“They are really tough (decisions),” Sununu added. “These have a direct impact on peoples’ lives.”
In Vermont, an accountant firm that represents 10 restaurant companies in the state oversaw the furlough of 1,000 workers, according to Benjy Adler, a partner in Skinny Pancake and a client of the accounting firm, which he declined to identify.
“The first message we want to drive home is taking social distancing seriously,” said Adler, whose Skinny Pancake restaurants have shifted to serving only takeout orders. He and his staff are developing “meal replacement menus.”
“Yesterday we had 235 employees,” Adler said on Tuesday. “Today we have 25. Revenues dropped 90% overnight. … People need to understand (that) without any revenue, we can’t employ anyone.”
But despite the economic damage, Adler said his priority is to ensure “every employee has food and shelter. … We’re taking the core of our team and turning it into a social-service agency to support our staff,” he said.
Toward that end, “everyone that worked with us can eat with us for free,” said Adler, who noted the company would be offering some financial assistance to employees to meet rent if need be.
“This is not about making money,” Adler said. “It’s about keeping as many people employed as possible.”
On Tuesday, Topher Lyon, the owner of Trail Break Taps + Tacos in White River Junction, was also trying to find way to keep at least some income flowing to his 22 employees. Trail Break is not planning to offer takeout service (“tacos don’t travel well,” Lyon said) and Lyon went on Facebook to solicit ideas about where he could contribute the contents of his walk-in refrigerator.
“I’m going to come up with some deep-cleaning projects to get people some hours where we can,” Lyon said, explaining he plans to use the closed period to prep the kitchen floor for resurfacing. The food truck is idle because the catering and wedding business has dried up.
Like Adler and Barnett, Lyon said his goal now is to try to alleviate the financial hardship for employees.
“If anyone needs rent for a month, I can pay rent,” Lyon said. “If anyone needs a quick check until unemployment, we can work that out on an individual basis.”
Valley News Staff Writer Tim Camerato contributed to this report. John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
