San Francisco restaurants were given the green light for limited indoor dining roughly two weeks ago, and already some of the city’s most popular destinations are flooded with reservation requests, even if they aren’t yet offering indoor service as an option.
Within four days of announcing it would open for the first time in six months for dine-in meals, San Francisco classic House of Prime Rib received 3,000 reservations, an employee at the restaurant confirmed this week. It opens Thursday, and is already booked through December unless some diners cancel. Mister Jiu’s, which is one of the Bay Area's Chinese American food favorites, is only open for takeout, delivery and outdoor service, but owner Brandon Jew said he’s receiving at least 10 to 15 calls per day for indoor reservations. Buzzy Italian restaurant Che Fico, which also hasn’t opened indoors, has been getting a lot of inquiries for indoor reservations and private parties too, according to co-owner David Nayfield.
High-end places in particular are seeing a rush of interest in indoor dining, according to Carlos Prieto, the operations manager of the Omakase Group, which owns upscale NIKU Steakhouse and Michelin-starred Omakase.
“It has to do with the type of service at those locations,” said Prieto, who plans to offer indoor dining soon. “At Omakase, for example, there’s no patio but also with that level of service and the sushi, people don’t want to enjoy those things outdoors.”
The situation illustrates how some Bay Area diners have missed traditional restaurant experiences during the pandemic, with interest in returning to places they once loved. But the excitement from diners isn’t matched by many local restaurant operators, most of whom see indoor dining as a precarious pursuit due to COVID-19. While the businesses value all avenues leading to increased sales, indoor capacity restrictions make it harder to quickly boost revenue through traditional dine-in service.
The recently expanded orders from the San Francisco Department of Public Health listed restaurant capacity restrictions at 25% or 100 people, whichever is fewer, and included two-hour time limits on indoor meals. The numbers layered within the health order are something Jew has been thinking about as it pertains to dining at Mister Jiu’s. Indoor service puts his business “in a tough position both financially and with health concerns,” he said, because not implementing it means missing out on a small amount of extra revenue, while allowing dine-in customers could potentially lead to the spread of the virus.
“We are planning (for indoor dining) without a tentative date right now because we know it will be the first step of moving towards reopening,” he said. “But I think right now it’s the highest risk with the lowest percentage of guests that can be allowed in.”
San Francisco’s Michelin-starred restaurant that blends European and Northern California flavors, Lord Stanley, also started getting inquiries the moment indoor dining was allowed. But co-owner Carrie Blease said that the team is planning on taking any expansion slowly — in part because they’ve had to make so many changes already over the course of the pandemic.
Since April, the business has been working with nonprofit SF New Deal, which pairs restaurants with food delivery sites to feed the city’s vulnerable populations. All of the prep and packaging work for it is done in Lord Stanley’s kitchen, Blease said, which means pivoting to indoor dining would take a substantial change to operations.
“Of course it’s amazing to have demand, but what people may not understand is that we have all rearranged our business models, staffing, hours, and even our dining rooms to accommodate a to-go form of service,” Blease said. “We would rather be slow and safe and take the time to establish safety systems and protocol that make sense for our space, keeping our staff and guests safe.”
Other restaurants, too, have spent the year adjusting by working on takeout, delivery and outdoor dining operations, and aren’t rushing for the potential new revenue stream of indoor dining due to the health complications around it, owners said.
Zuni Cafe hasn’t gotten many inquiries about indoor dining, but chef Nathan Norris is worried about the city allowing it at all. He’s concerned that enforcing the rules will be difficult, and because restaurants are struggling financially, they may have to break rules to make business work, he said.
“Most restaurants do not have access to the money needed to create the safest indoor space, such as modern HVAC systems, and serve a broader range of society, including the non-white populations disproportionately infected with COVID,” he said.
Other well-known local restaurants have been quicker to pivot to indoor dining, giving businesses some hope of survival after closures. Century-old restaurant John’s Grill in Union Square, as well as San Francisco’s popular Arabic comfort food restaurant Beit Rima, opened for dine-in service on the first day it was allowed in San Francisco. In September, owner Samir Mogannam said many of the restaurant’s regulars had been reaching out to him during the pandemic to ask when he would open the space for dine-in service, meaning there was demand for him to start last month.
“We just want to give that opportunity to feel normal again to people, to dine inside and start heading in that right direction where we’re doing better as a city,” he said at the time.
Still, the continuation of indoor dining hangs on the spread of COVID-19 remaining manageable. Last month, San Francisco moved into the orange tier, which is the state’s second-least restrictive tier in its four-color health rating system, thus allowing indoor service. For it to continue being an option, industry leaders have said diners will have to adhere closely to strict safety protocols like temperature checks, strict mask enforcement policies and multi-question health surveys.
“While virus levels are currently low in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area,” Norris said, “it would be short sighted to think that will continue without nearly universal mask usage, effective contact tracing, comprehensive access to paid time off, and adequate health care for everyone.”
Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @JustMrPhillips
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House of Prime Rib is booked through December, one of many with high indoor dining demand - San Francisco Chronicle
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