Like other businesses during the pandemic, restaurants are trying to keep their collective heads above deep, deep water. Besides their daily customers, eatery owners have lost special events like Easter dinner and Cinco de Mayo celebrations since the lockdown order went into effect March 21.
Looks like they’ll also be losing Mother’s Day and graduation outings, normally top grossers for sit-down restaurateurs. But this isn’t a normal year by any stretch, and many are in survival mode.
An adage among hospitality entrepreneurs — “the restaurant business is an oxymoron” — is becoming a daily truism. Some in the Illinois food industry estimate 75 percent of these mainly small businesses won’t make it if the stay-at-home mandate of Gov. J.B. Pritzker continues into June. Most remaining open undoubtedly are losing money.
We have special connections with our favorite beaneries. Eating out is a personal experience, interacting with those who tend bar, take orders, cook food, serve entrees, and cater to our wining and dining needs. It’s something we miss during the quarantine.
Restaurant owners in Lake County are trying their best to foster that during our Plague Spring. Many are scrambling, thinking outside the booth.
Timothy O’Toole’s in Lake Villa offered a curbside Easter ham dinner, with sides. Mambo Italiano in Mundelein has upped its game on social media. I know folks who eschew takeout dining, now picking up carryout at cafes in Waukegan, Gurnee, Libertyville and other towns to keep them operating.
Since the governor banned dining-out options for Illinoisans, Dimitri Kallianis, owner of The Shanty, has used social media to connect with the thousands of followers the 600-seat restaurant has cultivated since he reshaped the longtime Wadsworth fixture in 2006. The popular restaurant, which underwent one of the area’s largest expansions a few years back, has been featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”
For weeks, lines of buyers — from Wauconda to Racine, Wis. — have snaked through the parking lot at Route 41 and Wadsworth Road past his tiny store, a mini-Shanty, on the restaurant’s south side as he sold off most of his stock of beer, spirits and hundreds of cases of wine.
He then pivoted, selling off frozen steaks, seafood, other perishables and the family’s Lonely Tree olive oil. Greeting patrons wearing a hospital mask and latex gloves, he’s been flying solo since his 140 or so restaurant workers were laid off.
“It’s been crazy, the support has been unbelievable,” Kallianis said. “I’m totally overwhelmed by it. It’s humbling and I’m appreciative for those who have supported us. I’m keeping safe, customers are keeping safe and I’m keeping open.”
He holds social media contests, asking customers to send in photos, which he posts, of how they prepared the protein they purchased from The Shanty. Winners are drawn from the entries and receive a free meal with all the sides that he prepares and delivers.
Kallianis and his familial partners at the next-door Captain Porky’s, also is taking curbside pickup to a new level Tuesdays through Saturdays through the remainder of this month for those seeking relief from their own cooking: Twenty signature Shanty dishes.
He and Brad Trowbridge, the restaurant’s executive chef, will make 100 hot entrees with fixings from 5 to 7 p.m. in separate kitchens inside The Shanty to maintain COVID-19 intervals. The first one — apple brandy braised pork shanks — sold out in 11 minutes, he said. Details on what entrees remain available are at theshantyrestaurant.com.
“That will take us to May 30 and then we’ll see what Pritzker says (about opening up the economy),” Kallianis said. “If not, I’ve got five other ideas to keep connecting.”
Like other restaurants plotting out their social-distancing floor plans once the governor’s “Reopen Illinois” strategy begins and the statewide quarantine is lifted, he’s also got a clear plan for reopening. That includes keeping the eatery’s west side dining rooms closed, keeping tables six feet from each other on the east side dining room and outdoor areas facing the Wadsworth Sedge Forest Preserve.
When we’re allowed to return to restaurants, it will be a glorious time, indeed, sort of like the end of Prohibition. Happy days and hours will be here, again.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. sellenews@gmail.com. Twitter: @sellenews
