They’re some of New York’s most iconic eateries, feeding New Yorkers and on visitors’ must-see lists for decades—some for more than a century.
They’ve been through a lot in those years—wars, financial crises, blackouts, a terrorist attack. But this pandemic and the steps New York and other places are taking to fight it, like shutdowns and social distancing, is like nothing they’ve ever seen.
The shutdown in response to the viral outbreak “seemed like an avalanche, the speed at which things changed,” said David Berson, general manager at Peter Luger, the Brooklyn steakhouse that opened in 1887 and has been operated by his family since 1950.
The state order for restaurants to halt dine-in service and allow for only delivery and takeout has been a huge challenge at Luger, a special-occasion kind of place with high-end prices that dry-ages its own steaks and orders its supply well in advance.
It has meant severely cutting back on restaurant staff, down to a skeleton crew of about half a dozen from a normal contingent of about 100, Berson said. Everyone’s being paid their usual salaries for the time being.
It also means figuring out some inventory concerns, because right now, “we have a lot of dry-aged meat,” he said. “Literal tons.”
They’ve found ways to use some of it for a good cause, like bringing lunch for hospital workers.
It’s such a contrast from how Berson remembers the atmosphere after the Sept. 11 attacks, when people were asked to go out and support businesses.
Now “the best thing to do is the opposite, stay home,” he said.
The state’s order for restaurants to limit their operations is a central part of efforts to curtail the transmission of the CCP virus.
The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.
For most people, the coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. The vast majority of people recover. But for some, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.
At Junior’s, another Brooklyn mainstay, famous for its cheesecake, the doors are closed.
Owner Alan Rosen, the latest generation of his family to own the 70-year institution, figured the best way to survive the shutdown was to focus on its commercial bakery in New Jersey, which supplies still-open grocery stores, and to shutter the original location and three other outposts in Manhattan and Connecticut.
Staying open for delivery just wouldn’t have been sustainable, Rosen said.
That meant laying off 650 of 850 employees, some of whom came to the Brooklyn spot on March 19 to pick up their final paychecks.
It was emotional, Rosen said, but “our employees are the most resilient people. Their attitudes were amazing and uplifting to me.”
He was committed to getting through this and getting back up and running, and hopefully being able to bring back many of the employees he had to let go.
“We’re going to get this done,” he said of efforts to deal with the virus.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I am committed to my company and my family of employees and my family of customers.”
Mike Zoulis, the owner of Tom’s Restaurant in the upper part of Manhattan, wasn’t so confident. The restaurant—whose exterior is known to many as the restaurant on “Seinfeld” and as the setting of Suzanne Vega’s hit song “Tom’s Diner”—has been run by his family since it opened in the 1940s.
It’s open for delivery and pickup, but “if it continues like this, what am I going to do?” he said.
Right now, it’s just him and his two partners in the restaurant, with most of the staff of 25 to 30 people laid off.
“Tom’s has seen a number of disasters, and it survived and it survived and it survived,” he said. “Right now, it is the first time where I actually think that we might close down.”
At Katz’s Delicatessen on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, they’re still making soups and deli meats, including the famous pastrami, as they have been since it opened in 1888.
All of the 200 or so workers are still getting paid, even though only a fraction are actually working, in the store and in the warehouse in New Jersey where the deli takes care of its shipping business, said Jake Dell, the fifth generation of his family to run Katz’s, where Meg Ryan famously had an outburst in “When Harry Met Sally.”
“We recognize we have to look out for the neighborhood,” he said, adding, “We stay open because we have to” give others that sense of comfort and familiarity.
Employees are seeing that in the orders that are coming in for shipment, with messages from the senders saying things like, “Here’s a little comfort of home,” Dell said.
They’ll get through this latest thing, he said.
“Whatever it is, you figure out a way because you have to. You take it one day at a time, you do what you need to do to protect everyone,” Dell said. “We’ve weathered every storm that comes, from everyone looking out for each other.”
By Deepti Hajela
