A new set of woes for restaurants | Let’s Eat

It’s not easy being a restaurateur nowadays, and I’ll explain. Also this week, meet an advocate for kids, check out a tasty spreadable cheese, visit a revived restaurant, and get Philly’s most expensive tomato pie shipped to your door.

But first, a quiz:

Girl Scout Cookie season is upon us, so clear your freezer to make space for the essentials. Spot the cookie name that is not a real Girl Scout cookie.

A. Adventurefuls 🚀

B. Toast-Yays 🍞

C. Lemon deLites 🍋

D. Peanut Butter Patties 🍪

The answer is here.

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– Mike Klein

Since March 2020, the restaurant industry has feared for its life. We’ve seen unprecedented restaurant closings (along with a steady string of openings — restaurateurs as a group are optimists and people have to eat, after all), as well as a drastically changed labor market and quickly rising food prices.

Before you gripe about that $25 pizza or $30 roast chicken entree, read on:

The industry feels burned. Just as restaurateurs looked hopefully to 2022 for better times, the coronavirus’ omicron variant bore down. Christmas and New Year’s, traditionally busy, brought many voluntary temporary shutdowns. The National Restaurant Association, which surveyed 4,200 restaurant operators last week, reports that 84% of restaurateurs said business conditions were worse now than they were three months ago. Also, 93% of restaurateurs reported a decline in customer demand for indoor on-premises dining — not a good thing when it’s 20 degrees outside. Only 1% said business conditions improved during the last quarter.

OpenTable, the reservation app, has been keeping tabs on bookings, and it’s an eye-opener. Take the last month or so in Philadelphia. When compared with the same dates in 2019, the number of bookings are off by as much as 76%. This includes outdoor reservations. Anecdotally, I’m hearing more struggles to fill seats in the city of Philadelphia — which has a vaccination mandate — than in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs.

After the hit or miss relief from the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020, the industry is now looking for a replenishment of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which was widely deemed underfunded last year even at $28.6 billion nationally and $950 million in Pennsylvania. And, as was the case with the PPP loans, the 101,000 restaurants nationwide (3,530 in Pennsylvania) that received RRF grants were primarily large operators who managed to work the system. Half of the total RRF funds sent to the region went to just under 10% of recipients, according to an Inquirer analysis of Small Business Administration data.

But 177,000 applicants nationwide did not see a dime, and the National Restaurant Association sent a letter to Congress on Monday asking for more money. A bipartisan group of senators last summer pushed for nearly $50 billion more, but the move has stalled.

The association estimates that more than 35,000 restaurant jobs in Pennsylvania alone were saved as a result of the initial round of RRF grants, even though three-quarters of RRF recipients said the grant was not sufficient to cover all of their lost sales since the beginning of COVID-19.

The upshot, says the association: 55% of restaurant operators that applied for an RRF grant but did not receive one said it is unlikely that they will be able to stay in business beyond the pandemic, if they do not receive a grant through the RRF. This imperils more than 60,000 restaurant jobs in Pennsylvania.

Ariq Barrett was living in Kensington in March 2020 when the pandemic hit. He saw something he’d never witnessed before: kids panhandling. Since then, he has fed thousands of Philly kids and taught hundreds how to cook, but setbacks are keeping him from what he loves. Reporter Stephanie Farr shares his frustrating though touching story, part of The Inquirer’s We the People series about folks trying to make the city a better place.

Riverwards Produce is fixing up a century-old building in Old City for its second store. It’s a most unconventional setting, though founder Vincent Finazzo is a most unconventional grocer.

Orange wine has been popular with sommeliers and wine aficionados for years, but it continues to become more mainstream. Contributor Ari Bendersky consulted with local experts to tell you what you need to know and how to shop for orange wines. Pét-nat, anyone? (And check out that snazzy illustration by deputy food editor Joseph Hernandez.)

Pho is so commoditized you can buy it ready-made or at the hip restaurant around the corner. But when contributor Lam Thuy Vo’s world turned upside down, she asked her mother: “Mẹ sẽ dạy con cách nấu phở, duoc khong?” As in: “Will you teach me how to make pho?” She shares the techniques that helped heal her soul and connect her to her family.

Critic Craig LaBan is lovin’ Love-A-Neh, a creamy Middle Eastern-style cheese made by two local businesses, Merion Park Cheese Co. and Oreland-based Armenian yogurt producer Erivan Dairy. Zahav owner Mike Solomonov is a fan: He goes through 30 pounds of it a week.

Craig heads to Fourth and Fitzwater, home of Fitz and Starts, where he finds chef-owner Pat O’Malley, who has bounced back after a fiasco created by his former partner in 2020. O’Malley reengineered the pay structure and the culture, and the food shines, as always. “This kitchen still produces the most elegant croissants in Philly,” Craig writes in his Sunday review. That cheeseburger above isn’t too shabby, either.

As for the former partner: Chef Scott Schroeder and his wife, Maria, last week opened Maria’s Bread Sandwiches, at 685 Haddon Ave. in Collingswood.

Iannelli’s Bakery is South Philly’s Italian Brigadoon, open only about 15 days a year because baker Vincent Iannelli has too much else going on in his life. But all is not lost. He has started shipping his sublime tomato pie and crab gravy. An 18x24 tomato pie is $50 in the store, or $60 plus shipping by mail-order.

Father-son restaurateurs Bill and Will Mangan, owners of three McKenzie Brew House locations in the western suburbs, were faced with a problem at the Berwyn location two years ago. The office buildings on the Route 202 corridor that disgorged hungry and thirsty lunch and happy-hour patrons largely went dark. Last year, the Mangans shut down Berwyn and renovated it top to bottom, and are in the early days as Will’s + Bill’s Brewery. (”Bill,” incidentally, is after patriarch Bill Sr., a legendary restaurateur who passed at age 90 in March 2021.)

It’s still a bar-restaurant-brewery, but it’s taken on more of a traditional, family-friendly dinner-house air, with enormous, hoop-shaped lighting, wine barrel staves on the walls, and two fireplaces. The bar, lined with TVs (and featuring a piano for live music for grown-ups Thursday-Saturday), is separated from dining rooms.

Chef Antonio Bedoya’s menu is a something-for-everyone affair. Above is salmon tartare with crispy rice cake, pineapple salsa, and avocado cream. Starters also include spicy cheese fondue and Old English crab dip. There’s a raw bar, and the main include burgers, salmon BLT wrap, pastas, a 16-ounce bone-in ribeye, and one of the better deals in the suburbs: a Sunday gravy-type meal of chicken Parm with pasta or rigatoni Bolognese, side Caesar salad, glass of Chianti, and gelato for dessert, all for 22 bucks. Twelve house beers are on the tap list.

Will’s + Bill’s Brewery, 324 W. Swedesford Rd., Berwyn. Hours: 4 p.m.-midnight Tuesday-Thursday, 4 p.m.-1 a.m. Friday and Saturday, 4-11 p.m. Sunday.

Briefly noted

Yehuda Sichel of Huda and Frank Olivieri of Pat’s King of Steaks will do a virtual cooking experience from their kitchens to help Jewish Family & Children’s Service (JFCS) of Greater Philadelphia in raising funds to support its food relief programs Starts at 6 p.m. Feb. 1. You’ll see Sichel making matzo ball soup and brisket while he and Olivieri share stories. A contribution is required at time of registration.

There’s a move afoot to get Pennsylvania out of the liquor business, a goal sought by generations of Republicans in Harrisburg.

West Chester plans a restaurant week, starting Feb. 27.

The Bankroll Club, that upper-end sports bar operated by Stephen Starr and partners at the old Boyd Theater (1910 Chestnut St.), won zoning approval. Construction will commence, and a fall 2022 opening is planned.

The Stove & Tap location at Gay and Darlington Streets in West Chester has opened Good Bad & Ugly, a boisterous sports bar beneath it. You’d never know it, though. It’s denoted only by a sandwich-board sign next to a door on Darlington Street. Walk in downstairs and it’s a party with an 80-foot-bar, pool table and other games, a bar menu, and plenty of West Chester students. Hours: 4 p.m.-midnight Wednesdays, 4 p.m.-2 a.m Thursday and Friday, noon-2 a.m. Saturday, and noon-midnight Sunday. Kitchen closes at 11 p.m. Happy hour 4-6 p.m.

Looks like we’re eating hearty these cold days. Instagram user @ewollins says good things about the huevos rancheros from Cafe La Maude in Northern Liberties, and @poneill1776 is partial to the brisket poutine from Flannel in South Philadelphia. Share your photos with me.

Quiz answer: There are Lemonades and there are Caramel deLites in the Girl Scout cookie line — but not Lemon deLites.

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