2021 Bartender Quotes on "Cocktails-To-Go Cancellation" for Esquire by Aaron Goldfarb
Presented by Hanna Lee Communications
Thursday, June 25, 2021
1. Sother Teague, Partner of Amor y Amargo, Bar Reserver, Etérea
The emergency aspect of the Pandemic may be ending but the lingering injury needs time to heal. We’ve tread water for so long and to finally arrive at shore doesn’t automatically mean we are saved, we can still die of exhaustion or malnutrition.
This feels like a rug being pulled from under us, at my shop a whopping 9.5% of my TOTAL revenue comes from to-go drinks. Thats a substantial chunk especially considering that we’re nowhere close to pre-pandemic sales. Given that 78% of New Yorkers are in favor of the option staying on permanently (personally, I’m on the fence about a permanent change) it should at least stand for long enough for bars and restaurants to regain some financial footing possibly through until fall 2022.
Further, if it has to go, give us some running room to once again retool our models so that we can continue offering service to New Yorkers. We’ve already purchased enough of the necessary supplies (bottles, tamper evident caps, custom labels) to continue selling to-go cocktails for months. With this sudden break in service I’m stuck with all this sunk cost and no way to unload it. I’ll likely have to pay to have it hauled away, adding insult to injury.
2. Jeff Bell, Owner, PDT
I expected that NY State would cancel to-go cocktails for restaurants and bars once they allowed us to operate at 100% capacity with no restrictions. It is unfortunate, however, that we were given one day notice. We have a successful cocktail subscription service that does monthly pickups and we rely on that extra revenue. They abruptly dropped all covid restrictions for us during a press conference and essentially did that again with this.
We can’t just immediately flip a switch and go 100% and no social distancing, we don’t have the staff for that, no one does. It’s the most impossible hiring market I’ve ever seen in my career, so we don’t exactly have bartenders on standby to call when we can operate “normally.”
In a good job market it takes weeks/months to find, hire and train quality staff, it takes even longer now. We still aren’t staffed for 100% service without restrictions and are only able to open 5 days a week because of that. So, taking away that revenue stream of to-go cocktails matters. The government’s magic wand approach to making and removing policies has a much more complicated effect on us business operators.
3. David Oz, Owner of Bathtub Gin NYC
When the rule to allow to-go cocktails was instated, it offered a revenue source for bars and restaurants that were then shut down. For Bathtub Gin, it served as a major stream of income and helped us make it through the pandemic. The city has only recently removed the extensive restrictions that had been imposed on the hospitality industry for almost 1.5 years.
Most places have had major troubles staffing their venues – here at Bathtub Gin, we have only been able to be open 5 days a week and not at full capacity. Most of us haven't had a chance to even partially recover, when the government abruptly made the decision to take away the additional revenue source that we have come to rely on. Between the roadblocks to operating at full hours and capacity and losing the ability to sell cocktails to go, we may soon go back to struggling for survival.
4. Lucinda Sterling,Managing Partner of Seaborne and Middle Branch
If they cancel to-go cocktails, they are taking away something that has psychologically sustained people’s lifestyle and well being. Humans are social animals and it’s natural to be outgoing in a bar setting. Bringing that home enables people to feel natural away from the bar scene. It’s much like Netflix or Alexa...a form of entertainment. Bars will not return to “normal” without a feeling of awkwardness for months/years.
5. Gates Otsuji, Bartender, Good Judy
I've been actively bartending at Good Judy, a Park Slope, Brooklyn establishment that opened in July of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when outdoor-only seating first became available. With no prior base of regulars, we really weren't sure what to expect, but we were fortunate to find strong support from the neighborhood. Building community is a big part of our mission, so we've focused on in-person service & hospitality, but having the option of takeaway service for cocktails & other alcoholic beverages certainly took some of the pressure off the bottom line.
While we'll miss being able to offer that option, we've seen that our guests are comfortable with the return of indoor service, so we feel confident that our gains in that respect will eventually outweigh the elimination of takeaway drinks.
6. Paula Lukas, Bartender and Bar Consultant
To go cocktails have been a huge success for the bar and restaurant industry. It makes no sense to take it away. Especially since the bar/restaurant industry had been hit harder than any other industry from the pandemic.
To go cocktails have saved many bars and restaurants that have seriously struggled during the pandemic and have saved several jobs.
It's been a great benefit being able to to get a few to go cocktails along with my to go food orders. I can help support my fellow bartenders and it's also extra revenue for the bars and restaurants. We were thrown a lifeboat and now it's being taken away. Why stop something that's been so successful?
7. Max Green, Wonder Bartender at Blue Quarter
Governor Cuomo can’t quit kicking the service industry while it’s down. The continuous last minute movement of regulations and frivolous guideline changes is crippling. Bar and restaurant staff now have to tell their guests they can’t do one more fun thing they have gotten used to — leaving the guests frustrated with their reluctant enforcer. This is a huge loss for small business owners who are already on their backs financially. The addition of the lost investment on equipment and supplies right as the summer begins is one more slight.
8. Shannon Mustipher, former Beverage Director of Glady's Caribbean and consultant
I am disappointed - and dismayed - by the timing of how this news was delivered. I understand the rationale behind it - NYC is now fully open, and restaurants are able to now welcome diners to enjoy drinks indoors, and to serve them outdoors as well. As a result, one could argue that the to-go cocktails are no longer needed.
Unfortunately, looking at it this way is too black and white: it does not take into account that some establishments are choosing to continue outdoor service only for the well-being and safety of their staff. Some diners prefer not to go out as they have concerns for their wellness and health, as well.
In cases like these, to-go cocktails are a significant driver of sales for these venues.
Meanwhile, to-go beverages, in some cases, make up a significant amount of the overall sales and revenue for some bars, including those that are choosing to operate at full capacity. Taking this away - while many businesses are still working to recover lost revenue from the shutdowns, does not send a positive message to the businesses that play a significant part in not only keeping large numbers of NYC residents employed, but in making it an attractive city for residents as well as tourists, who bring significant amounts of tax revenue to the city.
We all knew to-go would eventually be phased out, I just wish that the message was given with at least 2 - 3 weeks notice to give bars and restaurants time to sell their product, use the packaging they invested in, or better yet, hold off on buying packaging that they will now have little to no use for.
Similar to the timing of other rules regarding closures, reopenings, and the way outdoor seating could be configured, this announcement comes across as somewhat tone-deaf and does little to endear the industry to the state and its' policies as we work hard to stay open and to keep serving the public who have gone out of their way to support us.
9. Joshua Griffiths, Bartender and Owner of Stir Up Bar Consulting
Currently I run and Manage the Bar Program at "Our New York Vodka" in Chelsea NYC. We are a distillery and cocktail bar where we distill our own vodka and spirits. After a very rough year we reopened our doors on June 3rd to the public excited to get back to work. A big part of our opening plan was our to-go-cocktails program.
We invested a lot of time, energy and money in creating something special for our customers that highlighted the Spirit that we make in our distillery. We did this because we felt the extra revenue would help us survive and possibly even strive in 2021. We ask that the NY State legislature to act quickly in to extend the to-go-cocktail-program as a lifeline to bars and restaurants still reeling from the economic impact of Covid.
10. Meaghan Dorman, Dear Irving on Hudson
The lack of notice to ending the to-go cocktails is particularly infuriating and unsympathetic to the position we are in. Now we are left with stock of bottles/bags/ etc. we have to delist from services that will try to find a way to charge us. Bars/restaurants made investment in building to-go programs under duress and now are left with sunk costs.
It also affects people that have been brought back to work and execute these programs- zero consideration that venues have at least a week of schedules posted. While sales have dipped from their high of holiday season (over $10k) to about $1k per month it’s necessary income to our recovery and has helped us bring more staff back to work over time.
11. Ivy Mix, Leyenda and Speed Rack
Like most of the announcements and communication from the city and state during COVID about rules and regulations regarding businesses, this announcement comes with just a few hours notice. I happen to have just bought a few hundred bottles for our To Go cocktails.
I wonder what I will do with them now? We will have to reconfigure our pars and pmix numbers to adjust for these lack of sales especially with the To Go that has been a real extra boost to our sales. It's a real shame that beyond the short notice that this is happening as summer starts and we could be sending people with delicious cocktails to go with them on their inevitable vacations when NYC slows down
12. Crystal Chasse, Whiskey Tavern
These last minute changes just reinforce the lack of thought the state has continuously shown the Food and Beverage industry throughout this pandemic. It takes time, money and energy to stay up to date with the continuously changing standards.
An industry that was ravaged by the last 18 months deserves more than a 2 day lead on discontinuing To Go drinks that require special vessels (cups, cans, bottles!) and, oftentimes, ingredients and labels. Many bars and restaurants have hired designers to make labels, invested in canned or bottled cocktails with long shelf life and then to have all of that go to waste is another blow we didn’t deserve.
13. Anthony Baker, Self-Employed as a Cocktail Professor
Telling New York bars that to-go orders are no longer permitted is really a huge blow for them; as if they haven’t suffered a big enough blow already from loss revenue during the lockdowns. I’m very thankful the bars are open now, but for them to try and fully recover, they need to still sell items on-the-go … what is the harm in that? How is this law going to make the city any safer, or less prosperous?
It would be one thing if bars didn’t have to pay overhead costs, but they are still obliged to do so. So why not help the bars in every manner we can and allow them to make up for loss revenue? If you’re going to cancel ways they can earn revenue, then please put in cancelling their monetary obligations as well.
14. Adam Miller, Owner of Rita Cantina in East Hampton
We had no choice but to adapt and adapt quickly when restaurants were closed last March. But adapting cost owners a lot of money on stickers, bottles, new branding, adjusted margins. Some people survived the pivot and sadly others did not.
Now we are told with no notice to pivot again, not because there was an major health emergency and had to, but because someone sitting in an office in an office is forcing us. Restaurants and bars are not back on there feet yet. A year of lost revenue seems to have been forgotten… restaurants are closing parts of there dining rooms because of staffing shortages. People like me who took the risk of opening a new restaurant during the pandemic have built there programs around to go drinks.
Who’s paying to reprint our menus, who has to let go of the woman hired to bottle cocktails….who thought a month after lifting restrictions, we were ready to be restricted? Who did this hurt?
15. Haley Traub, General Manager of Attaboy
While Attaboy has been extremely fortunate to return to a near pre-pandemic level of business, we relied heavily for the majority of the pandemic on to-go cocktail sales, and benefited from the continued popularity of them even as we reopened.
What’s particularly disappointing about the abrupt end to to-go cocktail and alcohol sales is that it was influenced by liquor store associations and elected officials who greatly opposed it in favor of their own financial gain—once again, the small independent businesses of New York are stripped of a lifeline.
We feel grateful to have had so many guests, both new and old, who supported us with to-go orders over the past year, and it’s nothing short of a bummer that we now have to break the news that we can no longer provide them Attaboy cocktails to enjoy at home. My only hope is that we’ll get to see their faces at the bar instead!
16. Orlando McCray, Bar Director of Nightmoves
We were very lucky to have a team of very informed people behind everything we did as to-go is concerned through the pandemic. If a rule changed one of the owners was already on it and we weren’t left guessing. Honestly, I don’t think the change tomorrow will affect us in a big way as to-go cocktails haven’t been a source of revenue that we rely on for a while now but again, we’ve been fortunate.
I know of plenty of bars that maybe because of where they are on the street haven’t been able to build-out so I think this very sudden change in policy is massively unfair to businesses that have done what they have to do up until this point and for whatever reason will be hurt by this. I think a lot of businesses were looking forward to to-go being permanent. I know that as a consumer I was hoping for that to be the case.
17. Rael Petit, beverage consultant, bar owner and cocktail caterer with shaken or stirred
Over the past year bar and restaurant owners struggle to keep the door open to our business. In New York it’s even more difficult with our rents being so extremely high over the years our project margin are so slim and we have to battle every day to keep the lights on.
The cancellation of to go cocktails will be tough on a lot of business because it’s a stream of income that help us pay the debt of not being able to open our business for a certain period of time and we had so many restriction on capacity over the past year. Things are getting back to normal but even having another year at to go cocktails might help us get back on track. A lot of bar invested a lot of money on to go containers and can machine to survive during the rough time but to stop doing this radically is another financial hole for those business.
18. ms franky marshall, Modern Bartender/Educator
Take away cocktails were definitely a boon for bars and restaurants during the height of the shutdown. Not only did it provide a much needed revenue stream, but also introduced bars to a new customer base. It gave bars that didn't normally serve cocktails a chance to get into the game, and gave cocktail bars/bartenders a creative outlet that was missing.
The problem with this reversal is the short notice. Establishments have invested in containers/lids, canning equipment, labels - sometimes hiring artists to design them, promotion... Some bars have gained new customers and regulars because of their to-go offerings.
There is less demand for take away cocktails now that bars are open again, but it was still nice to have the option, both for the business and consumer. It was still another way to generate revenue as we get back to pre-pandemic levels of business. As a consumer, I very rarely took advantage of take away drinks, but loved having the option.
19. Claire Sprouse, Owner of Hunky Dory
Just because a vaccine is successful does not mean that we can snap our fingers and go back to normal, or pretend that the last year did not happen at a huge cost. Our industry, like many others, has a long road ahead to repay the debts we have built over the past year.
Much of that came from Cuomo’s failure to step in and support with rent relief. A huge burden came from carrying the expensive weight that went along with protecting both worker health and the general public health, which we have been navigating more or less alone. The SLA giving us one day’s notice is just another slap in the face; both the agency and governor could have very easily given us a runway to prepare and change course for this pull-back.
The darker side to this is that it is not just ignorance on behalf of Albany, these rules have been politicized from the beginning. The liquor store associations have been organized and lobbying for years to uphold antiquated laws that ensure their survival over others; even in times when their sector has thrived and the nightlife industry remains in peril.
Their deep pockets for lobbying is the only reason that the state turns down additional revenue that could be generated from the sales of to-go alcohol; or pulls back another lifeline on an industry that is the heartbeat of nightlife here in NYC. New York continues to shirk it’s own accountability, and yet again show us what little regard they have for small businesses, all while playing politics very far away and out of touch with our daily struggles. I honestly asked myself yesterday, why am I trying so hard to be a business owner in a city and state that does not give two shits and makes it so hard (or hands out fines) at every turn?
20. Fanny Chu, NYC Drink Stylist and Head Bartender of Donna Cocktail Club
Throughout the pandemic,to go cocktails have been crucial to help a lot of our bars and restaurants stay afloat, it accounts for almost 50% of some of sales. It was like a “lifeline” for many our small businesses.
Every bar and restaurant are struggling to find staff, keep up with rising costs, and I know so many of them never even got PPP or restaurant loans. When the government make sudden changes like they have throughout the pandemic, it causes so much chaos and anxiety for us. They have no idea how this affects us and it causes confusion to our guests.
It makes us out to be the bad guy. I knew this to go cocktail was going to be temporary but to end it so prematurely?!?! It’s a thoughtless decision. Sure things are opening up and it looks like we are coming out of the darkness but business is far from normal!! It’s going to take at least a year for businesses to make up for all that they lost and get to a stable and sustainable place. It doesn’t harm anyone and it should stay at least until the end of the year.
21. Jessica Yurko, Beverage Director of Queensyard NYC
The To-go cocktail program was the lifeline for so many bars and restaurants during the pandemic, especially for ones that were unable to have any outdoor seating.
Even today, it's still 10% of the sales in our Cafe. I understand that bars and restaurants are filling up with guests again, but the To-go cocktails were bringing in revenue to help bring us back to our pre-pandemic numbers, and to help justify labor costs to bring back employees.
Not to mention the cost of all the goods that were purchased to sell cocktails to go-wirh basically no notice, those are an extra cost we brought in that can't be used. It's an incredibly thoughtless and potentially harmful end to the program and I know many many bars are going to struggle with adjusting to the change and how to deal with the sudden loss of revenue. Especially at time when every dollar counts for us, and everything we can do to make our guests happy and return matters.
22. Gloribelle Perez & Walid Mrabet, Owners Barcha in East Harlem, Married Couple and Parents of 6 Year Old Twins
Offering cocktails and bottles of wine for takeout and delivery was a real lifeline to small businesses like ours. We opened just four months before the pandemic and, as a new business, don’t qualify for a lot of the federal and state grant programs that have emerged.
Cocktails-to-go allowed us to not only take care of our guests by delivering expertly crafted cocktails and wine to their home but also allowed us to earn a revenue stream that we have no way of replacing in light of changed consumer behavior. New Yorkers have leaned into new routines, a new way of life, and having your favorite cocktail delivered to your home has become part of that routine.
Allowing for the delivery of cocktails and wine is, plain and simple, one of the easiest ways to help struggling restaurants bring in much needed revenue. The bills continue as though we’re in pre-pandemic times, but the revenue streams are cut, one after another. This is not sustainable, it’s simple math.
Guests are not rushing to bars and restaurants at the rate necessary to sustain the industry and we understand the hesitancy because the collective trauma of this pandemic is real. So even for us, not just as restaurant and bar owners but as consumers, we want to be able to order cocktails from our local spots too!
23. Hemant Pathak, General Manager at Junoon
NY was buzzing before the pandemic hit. Adjustments like alcohol to go were made to support struggling businesses. Everyone got creative to do the best they could. Now that the city is roaring back to life. As a bartender I’d love to see my patrons across the bar but at the same time as a bussiness we have come up with some exquisite packaging for our cocktails which one can enjoy at home. This going to be a big time sat back if to-go mandate cancel anytime soon.
24. Karl Franz Williams, Owner and Head Barman: 67 Orange Street in Harlem, NYC and Anchor Spa, a Karl Franz Bar and Restaurant in New Haven, CT
To-go cocktails will be missed both as an essential business driver and as a beloved benefit for our patrons. At the start of the Pandemic when we were closed for in-person dining they were our lifeline. While we do serve food, our cocktails have always been the majority of our sales. Food delivery, also a new pandemic related pivot helped, but never got to more than 30% of sales. The other 70% were takeout drinks. Besides driving revenue, these packaged drinks kept us relevant and visible and literally on the tip of people's tongues.
Even now, with our business fully open, they continue to represent an important part of our business. They are a building block to our recovery adding between 4-8% of our sales. And they continue to be important to our patrons, some of whom still aren't ready to commit to in person dining.
25. Matthew Piacentini, Owner of The Up & Up and Clyde Common
The institution of cocktails to-go in NYC was a big deal, and great in theory, but the lack of clarity on the rules made it difficult to implement to great effect. I find it somewhat astonishing that an agency who’s main job is to facilitate the ability for bars and restaurants to sell alcohol seems to have so little understanding of how those businesses actually operate. I will cut them some slack, because Cuomo was throwing an almost daily monkey wrench into the gears with has various off-the-cuff declarations. The most ridiculous of those being that each drink needs to be accompanied with a food item.
What about the bars in the city that don’t serve food? Or the fact that they kept the open container laws in place, and said the bar would be liable for anyone who was cited for open container violations within 100 feet of the establishment. That literally means around the corner in many cases. Given that, in order for someone to enjoy a cocktail to go, they have to either a) travel to your bar, get a cocktail and food, and then go all the way back home before drinking it. That’s a lot of work, or b) they could order delivery, except the delivery companies couldn’t decide if they allowed for delivering alcohol or not. Grubhub turned ours on and off almost weekly citing a constantly changing company policy. Also, the delivery drivers had no idea how to handle the drinks and accoutrements.
In the end, we had to only to pickup orders through our own pos takeout app. We got some big orders for sure, but I don’t think in the end, that the it ultimately covered the cost of the initial outlay for the various jars, bottles, printing, etc. It’s a shame that it went down such a mess. If they would have just said we can sell drinks to go without all these silly restrictions and liability, I think to-go would have been a huge deal and a lifesaver for many places like ours that didn’t serve food and therefore didn’t already have a takeout program. I can see how it works much better for places that only had to add drinks to an already robust program. But in the end, it was wasted opportunity due to bureaucratic misunderstanding of what was actually needed. We were actually discussing how soon we could end the takeout program when the news broke that it was ending.
26. Olivia Hu, Co-founder and beverage director of All Night Skate
The option for to-go drinks was fun while the business was depending heavily on any additional revenue during the several covid-restrictions placed on bars and restaurants. Personally I’m not a fan of single use items so not needing to order plastic cups, lids, and straws as part of my inventory would be kind of a relief.
Additionally I did have concerns about bar customers ordering liquor to-go and possibly getting behind a wheel to drive. So I will say that to-go alcohol made some hilarious memories throughout covid. We once sold a “shot of Hennessy to-go,” which was a 1 ounce plastic cup with a lid. But I won’t be disappointed if alcoholic beverages returns to on-premises consumption only.
27. Shawn Chen, Beverage Director and Master Mixologist of Red Farm
I personally think the cancellation of to-go cocktails/drinks is going to adversely impact many restaurants and bars who are still struggling to keep their doors open. Although it is inevitable that the to-go cocktails will not be the everlasting solution to keep the hospitality industry afloat, it has definitely provided an extra stream of revenue for many business owners during the pandemic.
As a member of the hospitality industry, I saw first-hand the collapse of the hospitality industry at the height of the pandemic, it was devastating and heart-breaking to see many of the iconic restaurants and bars closed their doors permanently due to the pandemic. In my opinion, I think the to-go cocktail policy was one of the main reasons that many restaurants/bars were able to keep their doors open. It provided a much needed sense of stability for a struggling industry during uncertain times where many business owners couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
28. Jillian Vose, Beveraging Director and Managing Partner, The Dead Rabbit
This pandemic has obviously changed the hospitality industry indefinitely, nobody can deny that. When the shutdown happened, business owners had to make some very tough decisions to keep their businesses alive in hopes that there would be a bar for their employees to come back to once this was all over. Nobody had any idea it would be almost a year before things would start to open up again. To-go drinks were a beacon of hope for some to keep a bit of money in their employees pockets and maybe even pay some bills down, but it really depended on the location of your bar and what your offerings were. Cocktail bars could keep relevant to their followers. Dead Rabbit being downtown and reliant on businesses in FiDi being open and tourists, this didn't seem like a viable option for us.
We didn't start our togo drinks right away, we waited to see what would happen, in hopes of reopening much sooner than what was to come. When we realized things were opening slower than we anticipated, we decided that we needed to keep the bar alive and relevant by offering to-go drinks up to our standards due to the many requests that we had been getting. We made proper labels that included the ingredients and the method to make them at home. We even went as far as to create videos you could reach through your phone via a QR code on the cap and we sealed them in-house.
This process is no simple task and definitely was not cheap either. It took selecting the right drinks that would hold up as RTD's, a person to prep all the ingredients and put them together, order all the packaging, attach labels, make the videos, seal the seals. Now this was ok while the bar was operating at minimal capacity, but now that we're open at a higher volume it's become a lot of work on top of everything else. Hiring someone to just do the RTD's is not feasible, as we are still not able to bring back our full labor force. Let's just say the profit margins are not great.
While to-go drinks being cancelled may not be the end-all-be-all for us at this time due to the occupancy restrictions being lifted, it is still an opportunity for bars and restaurants to take in any extra revenue if they are benefiting from it, it should be a choice. It's also created a pretty cool vibe throughout the city, especially now that the weather is nice and not everyone is comfortable going to bars and restaurants again. I believe we should have that option to make up for any lost revenue as our industry has suffered greatly. New York was promised this would be something that would last for a couple years and it being taken away so abruptly I believe is unexpected.
29. Estelle Bossy, Beverage Director, Meal Plan, Graduate Hotel Roosevelt Island
I’ve just opened the Graduate, a new hotel on Roosevelt Island where I planned for to-go cocktails to play an integral part of my summer beverage program. In the wake of the pandemic, many folks prefer to socialize outdoors or in the safety of their own homes--as the only cocktail bar on Roosevelt Island, the ability to sell drinks to-go would have been a welcome boon for residents as well as a helpful revenue stream.
Thankfully, I am still able to sell hotel guests bottled cocktails to enjoy on property, but New York State’s inability to extend such a popular policy is a tone-deaf response to the crippling challenges and losses the restaurant industry has faced this past year.
30. Joaquin Simo, Owner of Pouring Ribbons
We didn’t do much to-go (only about three brief runs) so I think you will have more constructive insights from someone else on this topic. However, I blame retailers’ lobbying power more than I blame Cuomo.
Off-premise sellers loathe that we can sell to-go and have been lobbying against it from the start, especially since it involved not only batched cocktails but also bottles of wine/spirits. This is of course despite the massive uptick in liquor store sales and profits during the pandemic, when on-premise establishments were hemorrhaging money or closing.
31. Toby Cecchini, Owner of Long Island Bar
I can well understand the hue and cry of those in the industry who have invested thousands in canning or bottling machines and bespoke packaging materials to be able to sell cocktails to-go. The governor and the legislature have acted in a blindly cynical manner here, it seems. For my part, we never got much traction from to-go sales, it was just a little trickle in our business. But the thunder-from-above immediacy of the rescinding, without any explanation or discussion, without providing businesses that have made substantial investments in these materials at a very difficult time some kind of buffer period, is a bit demoralizing.
It also makes for a very ominous precedent when one begins to wonder what’s going to happen with outdoor dining. That has been our lifeline, and imagining it being similarly ripped away from the industry right now would be a death sentence. Outdoor dining, like the to-go cocktail initiative, is simply something people, now that they’ve seen it and gotten used to it, have found to be an overwhelmingly positive addition to our cityscape. I’ve been a tempered fan of Cuomo through much of his ups and downs, but this is a bit of a crude shove, I must say. It’s not really like: okay, we’re all back to normal now, let’s take back any posture of largesse we extended to the hospitality industry. It’s going to be years getting back on our feet properly.
32. Michael Mcilroy, Owner at Attaboy
We think it's shocking that they've decided to take away this much needed lifeline!!
This is essentially what kept the lights on at Attaboy (and many other establishments) in the early days of the 'Shelter In Place'.
This was the Genie that I thought would be difficult to put back into the bottle because 'to go' was such a popular concept that it was overwhelmingly appreciated by both customers and owners.
Clearly it's a decision made by people who have no idea about the hardships business owners faced these past 16 months, especially in NYC. The fact that it was made so abruptly without any thought or consideration shows this!!
I ask Gov. Cuomo and the powers that be to rethink this turnaround ASAP!