A long, long time ago, in March, Tipple Café was filled with so much noise. Just at the brink of the school strip along Katipunan, it found the middle ground between discerning diners and bibbing youth. In the morning, the sun-lit café was busy with the clanking of tableware and cutlery as families enjoyed plates of fried chicken and shawarma; by night time, the second floor came alive with music, loud voices, and glasses clinking.
Today, stepping into Tipple Café, there are only employees. Clad in their usual black, their faces are covered and their voices muffled behind masks. The only noise is their shuttle between the kitchen and a table where takeout bags are being set up.
Though rules for dining in restaurants have relaxed in the last couple of months, many potential customers prefer the security of staying at home. Takeout is a treat; eating in an actual restaurant is an extra special treat.
It took Tipple Café’s chef-partner Francis Lim two months since quarantine restrictions were set in place to get into this new takeaway groove. “We’re restricted to a limited amount of products that can withstand the takeaway process… [We needed to] schedule human resources, find means of transportation, make sure our employees were in COVID-free areas.”
BC – before COVID – the restaurant required 50 to 100 tickets a day to make a profit. Nowadays, Lim would be lucky to receive 10 orders.
There are no concrete records on how much restaurants are being affected by this pandemic – only that things are very, very bad. It’s as if the once thriving industry was a glorious tree that was suddenly struck down in its prime by unexpected lightning.
Many eateries have closed: some permanently, while others are biding their time anticipating that a finish line is near. But restaurants are fighting back hard. There’s a lot of life in it because literally a lot of lives are at stake. Some businesses have kept open if only for the sake of their employees.
But that’s just the point: they’re keeping open, a glimmer of hope for an industry that has no other plans but to bounce back.
Business interrupted
Emotions were high for restaurateurs and chefs when the IATF (Inter-agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases) announced that restaurants would be closed for the enhanced community quarantine.
Husband-and-wife team Bruce Ricketts and Jae Pickrell, who are behind powerhouse restaurants Mecha Uma, Sensei Sushi, and La Chinesca, were overwhelmed by the wishy-washiness of the situation.
“[We were] worried, confused, and anxious because of all the questions that I couldn’t answer,” said Ricketts. Pickrell added they felt almost crippled because it was unclear whether restaurants would be allowed to operate at all.
Revenues dropped, especially during the first few months of paranoia. Pickrell described the figures as “devastating.” Lim, similarly, minced no words. “Our financial standing isn’t too good as well. It’s like starting all over right now.”
The most efficient band-aid solution was to offer takeaway, but this meant going back to the drawing board. Chef-driven restaurants like Mecha Uma and Toyo Eatery, for example, take extra pride in the dining experience, where customers are encouraged to interact with the chefs. The new streamlined service called for cutting back on human resources.
Ricketts and Pickrell were initially tentative since their experience of delivery wasn’t exactly encouraging. “It sucked because those services only made up a tiny fraction of our pre-pandemic revenue,” said Pickrell. Then there were labor reduction, logistics, handling, supply chain, and other things to consider.
In the kitchen, Ricketts had other concerns. He had a lot of expensive inventory that didn’t seem to suit takeaway.
Despite the hesitations, Pickrell knew they needed to buckle down and make things happen. “Grit and scrappiness took over…It was important for us to be agile since rules kept changing, but we knew we had to adapt or lose.” Practicality had to take over and she understood that it would be naïve to hope for BC numbers.
During months when dining in wasn’t at all allowed, Mecha Uma not only changed its concept, Ricketts had to revise how things were cooked and ingredients handled. “It was so exhausting in the beginning to work in a kitchen where you feel like you’re counting your every move to make sure everything is safe,” he explained. “We had to learn how to age products extensively, as well as recalibrate recipes so that they would hold better as takeaway.”
The result was Mecha Uma To Go, a series of bento boxes that promised the caliber that Ricketts is known for. Deliveries are even timed to ensure only the best results.
Some adjustments are much smoother. It took Toyo Eatery only two weeks to pivot into this new business model, but there continues to be doubt. “I guess right now we’re still trying to answer the question as to the possibility of being sustainable with this model of offering pick-up/delivery,” said May Navarra, wife and business partner of Toyo’s Jordy Navarra. This system, however, made sense for their other restaurant Panaderya Toyo, and even amidst the pandemic Toyo Eatery was once again the lone Philippine entry to the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Distance dining
By June, despite the continued rise in COVID numbers, the halted economy needed to be revved back up again. Restaurants began to reopen their doors, albeit with carefully spaced seats, face shields, and limited turnovers.
Along with their premium award-winning cuisine, Toyo Eatery had gotten into a rigid habit of decontamination. “Everyone here uses food-grade ethyl alcohol as a standard disinfectant while cleaning and sanitizing with bleach at the end of the night so the plan is to be more vigilant with the cleaning and sanitizing during operations while adding UV disinfectants and disinfecting after guests use different tables,” said Navarra. Toyo staff also get tested regularly.
But apart from a newfound obsession for sanitation, the pandemic has pushed for a pragmatic kind of creativity.
“I’m happy to see a lot of people emerge with new products, be it seasoned pros to newbie homemakers,” said Lim who used the pandemic to come up with baked rice versions of his most popular dishes, like the KFC, Shawarma Rice, and Steak Rice.
The shakeup also taught them to work more efficiently. To consolidate expenses, Ricketts and Pickrell quickly merged Sensei Sushi, which had moved to a bigger location last year, with La Chinesca in June. “It ticked all the survival strategies we needed: a streamlined team capable of operating two concepts, shared overhead expenses, and a consolidated hub,” she explained, noting that many other restaurants have adapted a similar shared scheme with cloud kitchens and commissaries.
“The plan for all restaurants is to basically slog on with all the survival strategies until all of this is over—not much else can really be done,” she added.
In Mecha Uma dine-in, Ricketts is pretty much the only person left in the kitchen, plus two front of house staff. The restaurant’s limited seating has become even more exclusive, and, as interaction with customers are kept to a minimum, the chef emphasizes his message through how he prepares his sushi omakase.
“It’s all about learning from how we’ve been able to operate the restaurants at slimmer operating expenses, and trying to make the most out of every raw material we have,” said Bruce. “It’s also about being more creative with products that are being overlooked to create dishes that will excite diners.”
No normal
From the days of opening restaurants back and forth and chefs moving from strength to strength, most restaurant owners now hesitate to plan for the future.
Ask any restaurateur and one thing is certain—that nothing is.
“It’s a lot of uncertainty but we’re hopeful of survival in the sense that everyone right now is going through hardship, some more than others,” said Navarra.
Despite closures left and right, Pickrell is choosing to be “cautiously optimistic.” “I believe that there will always be a demand for restaurants of every kind, but ultimately it’s up to the community to dictate which are truly needed since our existence relies wholly on their support,” she said, promising that they will try to meet and exceed whatever their customers demand.
As for Lim, every day till the old normal – in case it ever comes back – is a lesson in evolution: “You can never be ready, but you always just have to be prepared. That’s my take away from every little or big thing that’s happened.”
There’s no saying what will happen to restaurants in the future, whether dining out will return to carefree merrymaking or we’ll all have to get used to taking temperatures, catching up through acrylic dividers, and sitting two meters apart. Some of these measures may even be adapted long after COVID-19, like digital bookings, menus, and payment.
But nothing is inevitable anymore. Chefs and restaurateurs aren’t making any assurances that there’s an end to eating with masks on. All they have left is precaution. But, no matter what happens, these chefs are waiting, equipped to serve those who are ready to eat out now. – Rappler.com
Editor’s note: #EatOutNow is both a call to action and a campaign to support the food and beverage industry. The campaign hopes to spark honest discussions about best practices in the industry, and about how both owners and patrons can ensure high safety standards, revitalize dining, and create a world where it’s easy to responsibly eat out again.
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