OHIO, USA — A struggling restaurant industry continues to impact businesses across Northeast Ohio.
Across the state, the Ohio Restaurant Association reports more than 3,000 restaurants have closed their doors for good.
Douglas Katz knows all about running a business. He used to operate three restaurants and a catering business all at once, but now it’s a different story.
“Right now, I have one restaurant,” Katz said.
The choice to close one shop in the summer of 2020 and another a year later wasn’t easy, but it’s how Katz said he managed to stay in business at all.
“It’s just a business where you can lose so much money in a day,” Katz said. “We really needed to just consolidate and get small again to be ready to grow post-pandemic."
Katz’s restaurants were amongst the many that announced they couldn’t sustain business under the circumstances that have lingered since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“The suburbs are doing a little bit better. The downtown [business] is a little bit harder,” President and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant Association, John Barker, said.
Barker has been following the industry’s changing dynamic throughout the pandemic.
“It’s not unique to Cleveland, It’s the same story we hear from all major cities,” Barker said.
According to Barker, 90,000 restaurants have closed shop since the start of the pandemic; In Ohio, 3,100 have shut down for good.
“The bulk of them are in big cities,” Barker said.
Things were looking up when COVID-19 vaccinations began rolling out, but continuing labor and supply shortages have become the biggest hurdle.
“We had night momentum going all the way through late July but then the delta variant took off,” Barker said.
The latest survey done by the Ohio Restaurant Association reports that 71 percent of the restaurants that took part said sales declined into September.
The trajectory for businesses into the final quarter of the year depends on the type of service offered, according to Barker, who anticipated to-go style businesses to do well.
“A really healthy and strong take-out business contactless online order, delivery, your business is probably going to be ok,” Barker said. “High touch, high service businesses those are the ones we’re are most worried about.”
The Ohio Restaurant Association along with the National Restaurant Association are pushing legislators daily to get more aid to restaurants, aid similar to PPP loans and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, according to Barker.
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