Olympia area restaurants can expand service on Monday. Will it make a difference?
Starting Monday, restaurants, bars and cafes throughout Washington will be able to increase customer capacity from 25 percent to 50 percent under Phase 3 of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Healthy Washington Plan.
Olympia area restaurant operators told The Olympian last week they welcome the additional business for them and their peers, but they also weren’t bursting with enthusiasm: It has been an incredibly hard year for the hospitality industry — one marked by closings, partial reopenings, closings again, and partial reopenings again.
And now the front door is about to open a little wider.
Rick Nelsen, who co-owns Lacey steakhouse Ricardo’s with his wife, Marie, said he’s pleased his peers can grow to 50 percent. He has found success by converting a banquet room into another dining room for his restaurant. But frustrations about the past year also weren’t far from the surface.
“Overall the whole thing seems so mismanaged and unfair,” said Nelsen about Inslee’s previous COVID-19 directives. “He keeps moving the goal posts.”
The leisure and hospitality industry was battered in 2020. Although the Thurston County unemployment rate fell to 6 percent overall in January (February data has yet to be released), the county shed 5,200 jobs over the past year, 1,700 of them in a category that includes restaurants.
Well 80 owner Chris Knudson, who also co-owns the Casa Mia restaurants, said he is “cautiously excited” about moving to 50 percent capacity. He welcomes the chance to do more business, but he also has an employee who lost a family member and a friend to the disease.
To survive, his business took advantage of grants and loans. He praised his staff, those customers that continued to support the business, and his wife.
“It’s been a tough year,” he said, adding that Well 80 also had to get creative.
They started a Sunday morning curbside service that was popular during football season: A giant burrito, big enough to serve two people, that comes with either a 32-ounce cocktail or a four-pack of beer for $25. Knudson hopes there’s interest in the Sunday morning curbside service during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament that just kicked off.
Chris Reimertz, co-owner of Dancing Goats Coffee Bar in Lacey, said the increase to 50 percent doesn’t mean much to him because the layout of his cafe won’t accommodate more tables and still meet social distancing requirements.
What he needs, he said, is a complete return to normal — a parent who drops off their children at school, then swings by for a cup of coffee, or the nearby office worker who does the same thing about 10 a.m. each day.
“It’s all about personal patterns and those patterns have been disrupted,” he said.
Reimertz and his wife, Gina, opened the business across from the Intercity Transit center in Lacey in 2011 and crossed their fingers for the area around them to change. It did. South Puget Sound Community College moved its Lacey campus to Sixth Avenue and office buildings near Huntamer Park were redeveloped. Businesses and organizations moved in, such as Planet Fitness and the state Utilities and Transportation Commission.
As the area grew, so did their business. By 2019, they had a dozen employees. But in 2020, revenue had fallen to 2012 levels and they cut their staff to one worker. Now, they are back up to a half-dozen, he said.
Reimertz is crossing his fingers that September brings a return to school and the workplace.
“We can’t go at this capacity forever,” he said. “You don’t become an entrepreneur to scrape by.”
Christian Skillings, owner of the Iron Rabbit in west Olympia and Cynara in downtown Olympia, said he is excited to be expanding to 50 percent capacity, saying he will be doing more lunchtime service at both locations.
He also said he’s been supportive of the measured approach to reopening in a pandemic.
“If it means going slow now to go faster later, then I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”
Need a job? Restaurants are hiring
Whether it’s because of COVID-19 health concerns or a lack of child care or because jobless benefits and federal stimulus payments have kept some on the sideline, restaurant owners say they have been struggling to find workers.
And now the need is even greater because they can expand service on Monday.
“The hardest thing is finding employees,” said Nelsen of Ricardo’s. “I need to hire three today and we can’t find them. And the pay is good.”
Well 80’s Knudson said he needs what the industry refers to as “back of house” staff, such as cooks and dishwashers at both Well 80 and Casa Mia.
Skillings said the same. “We are hiring at both locations,” he said.
If you’re a prospective restaurant worker concerned about COVID-19, there’s good news. Beginning March 31, restaurant workers are among those eligible to get vaccinated.
This story was originally published March 21, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
