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BRANDON — Faced with the loss of their standard food deliveries from New York City as a result of COVID-19, the owners of Li’s Chinese decided to cook the ingredients they did have and give the meals away for free Tuesday before closing their restaurant altogether.
“Lunch is on us today!” the Brandon restaurant announced to its Facebook followers, drawing a steady stream of customers who collected containers of chicken fried rice, egg rolls, crab rangoon, and sweet and sour soup.
Co-owner Tiffany Li, who was working in the kitchen with her husband and two sons, chatted with customers who stopped at the register to thank her, but she refused payment when it was offered. She added that she’s not thinking about the long-term future.
“We’re just taking it one day at a time,” Li said.
The restaurant is one of many that closed Tuesday after Vermont Gov. Phil Scott on Monday ordered restaurants and bars to limit their activity to takeout and delivery. Scott issued that directive — effective 2 p.m. Tuesday — on the day he also limited public gatherings to 50 people or less, a move that will affect thousands of other small businesses.
Restaurants are a $1.1 billion business in Vermont, according to the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, which studied their economic impact in 2018. The Chamber counted more than 1,400 eating establishments in the state that year, with 29,600 jobs – about 9% of the state’s employment.
The Chamber also separated full-service restaurants from limited-service, or takeout. It said each dollar spent in restaurants with table service contributes $1.66 to the state economy. Each dollar spent in limited-service restaurants $1.45.
Scott’s decision to close bars and restaurants to dine-in service did not come as a surprise to restaurant owners, who had been watching fast-changing policy limit more and more economic activity in Vermont and elsewhere. Governors in more than a dozen states, including California, Washington, North Carolina, Illinois, Florida and Ohio, have closed bars and restaurants to dine-in service, as have areas such as New York City and Los Angeles.
Erin Sigrist, president of Vermont Retail & Grocers Association, which has restaurants and delis among its members, said she knows many restaurants have closed down for now, rather than trying to continue with takeout or deliveries.
“We have members in fairly rural areas saying, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to make it long term,’” she said Tuesday.
Line Barral, who co-owns Gourmet Provence and Café Provence in Brandon, closed her restaurant Tuesday but started offering limited meal pickup at her nearby café, with some delivery available. On Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day, the store was selling corned beef and cabbage.
“At 2 p.m., the chairs will go away,” she said of the café’s seating area.
Benjamin Adler, the co-owner of the Burlington-based Skinny Pancake chain, said Tuesday that home deliveries might help him keep on some of his staff as he faces a large reduction in business.
“We have the ability to produce a huge amount of food, and we are immediately pivoting to try to sustain our staff to try and offer home meal replacement,” he said. “My expectation is that those will be delivered by our team to people’s homes.”
Many of the businesses that are scrambling to adapt have already laid off workers. Barral laid off her restaurant workers last week.
“All the staff from the restaurant has been told to file unemployment, but they are having a hard time getting in touch with the Labor Department,” she said.
It’s likely thousands of others are suddenly out of work. The Vermont Labor Department reported it can’t answer all the calls it is receiving. (Today it announced that it has ramped up staff and opened an online portal for unemployment applications).
While some of the lost jobs might return when the economy recovers from the closures, there is concern that some are gone for good.
“If you’re on the margin, and then you can’t be open or you can’t serve, face it, that’s going to affect you dramatically,” said Tom Torti, president of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce.
The downturn and closures could not have happened at a worse time for Vermont, Torti added. Spring usually marks an increase in meetings and events.
“The spring and summer season are, for Burlington, the time when businesses really make their budget for the year,” Torti said.
Adler, of the Skinny Pancake, estimated his accountant helped clients with the details of more than 1,000 layoffs in Burlington on Monday. He now plans to advocate that his 240 laid-off staff members receive unemployment insurance. And he’s going to feed and house them at the restaurant if they need it.
“Everyone I laid off can come in to eat this for free until this is over or until we run out of money,” Adler said. “I am going to ensure the food and housing security of 240 people.”
Downtown Brattleboro’s three-screen Latchis Theatre stopped presenting films on Monday and has laid off 10 workers at least until April 6, said Jon Potter, executive director of the building’s nonprofit owner, Latchis Arts. The block’s 30-room hotel is running with a “skeletal staff” to serve traveling workers, including those decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in neighboring Vernon.
“It’s a different level of human activity in the hotel,” Potter says. “If we practice good cleaning, we think we manage the risk.”
The four-story Art Deco landmark — advertised upon its debut as “A Town Within a Town – All Under One Roof” — also rents space to a jeweler and hemp store (both still open), a language school (now teaching online), and a hair salon (operating by appointment).
“There might be up to 40 jobs in this building,” Potter said. Community health is a priority, he said, but “our downtown is reliant on people. I’m very concerned for the long-term health of businesses that have to shut down for some time.”
Jennifer Stocker, co-owner of Shafer’s Market & Deli, is abiding by the new rules regarding takeout, but she thinks they’re overkill. Stocker, who said she laid off nine employees this week, has piled up her tables and chairs on one side of the dining room and will take the slowdown as an opportunity to do some painting and general repairs. She refers to the COVID-19 virus as a “cold” and said she’s let her congressional representatives know she’s not happy about the closings.
“I’ve expressed my opinion that I am much more worried about going out of business than I am about catching this cold,” she said. “It’s an overreaction. If you look at the statistics, you’re less likely to catch this than you are the flu, and I’ve had the flu every year.”
Stocker and her husband bought the business in 2017 and had hoped to start earning a salary for the first time this year.
“I am really hoping this goes by quickly and we can look back and be like, ‘Wow, we overreacted,’” Stocker said. “I just feel bad for all the small businesses.”
Sarah Asch, Justin Trombly, Kevin O’Connor, and Aidan Quigley contributed reporting
