Indoor dining in NYC launched for the first time in six months on Sept. 30 at 25 percent capacity, which restaurant owners say isn’t enough to keep them in business once it gets too cold for outdoor dining.
But many moved forward anyway on Cuomo’s Sept. 25 vow to look at raising indoor capacity to 50 percent by Nov. 1 if infection rates remained steady.
The seven-day moving average of coronavirus cases across the city at the time was 882, according to Worldometers.com. Now it’s 1,665, or roughly double, as the city deals with spikes across nine zip codes that have already been forced to pare back their reopening efforts.
Still, restaurateurs say they want answers.
“What angers me the most is that Cuomo doesn’t give us direction for the future,” said restaurant consultant Rick Camac, director of operations for Tribeca’s Kitchen. “All of us who thought Nov. 1 was happening spent money getting ready for it. There is a cost to reopen. Will some restaurants now be going out of business? Absolutely.”
The Governor’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.