Survey: Without additional funding, more Colorado restaurant closures could be on the way

DENVER — As a state, it appears the Omicron-driven surge of COVID-19 has peaked in Colorado. This past week, state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy said the latest modeling reports predict that about 75% of Coloradans are currently immune to Omicron.

This is good news for many reasons, chief among them that fewer people are getting sick each day and hospitals have more available beds (although state officials stressed that hospitals are still very strained, just not as much as they were a few weeks ago).

The decline in cases is also music to the ears of those who work in the restaurant industry, which was rattled by the Omicron surge, according to a new report.

The January “COVID-19 Colorado Restaurant Impact Survey” from the Colorado Restaurant Association (CRA) found that “85% of Colorado restaurants experienced a decline in customer demand for indoor on premises dining in recent weeks, as a result of the increase in coronavirus cases due to the Omicron variant.”

The survey was conducted between Jan. 6 and Jan. 18. Because of the Omicron surge and decrease in demand, 45% of respondents reduced their hours and 43% closed on days when they are normally open. Nearly a third of restaurants reduced their seating capacity.

Unlike earlier in the pandemic, when reduced hours and limited seating were the results of public health measures implemented by local governments (remember when last call was at 10 p.m.?), no such orders are in place during the Omicron wave, suggesting diners are more hesitant to dine-in due to Omicron’s high transmissibility and its ability to infect fully vaccinated people.

According to the survey, more than three-quarters of restaurant owners said business conditions are worse now than they were three months ago. Just 1% of owners said conditions improved in the last three months.

Over the last year, staffing has been an issue, leading to some restaurants finding ways to raise salaries and increase benefits. But as CRA's CEO Sonia Riggs told Rocky Mountain PBS last spring, workers — many of whom were laid off or furloughed in the early days of the pandemic — are being more selective about where they work now that restaurant owners are trying to hire more staff. And it's not without reason: as Katie Okamoto wrote for Eater, the decision to return to kitchens and dining rooms for high risk workers is "literally life and death." Last year, a study from the University of California, San Francisco found that line cooks have the highest risk of mortality from COVID-19.

Recent struggles in the restaurant industry have been highlighted by some high profile closures, like the iconic Breakfast King diner in Denver. The diner had been open 24/7 for decades but greatly reduced its hours over the course of the pandemic. 

To stave off more such closures, the National Restaurant Association (NRA) has called on Congress to refill the federal Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF). The $28.6 billion fund launched in the spring of 2021 but was quickly depleted due to high demand. According to the CRA’s recent survey, more than half of Colorado restaurant owners who applied but did not receive money from the fund last year believe they will not make it through the pandemic.

Those who did receive money said it was a lifeline. “96% of RRF grant recipients said the grant made it more likely that they would be able to stay in business during the pandemic,” according to the CRA survey, which added that some 15,000 restaurant jobs were saved because of the RRF.

It is unclear at this time if Congress plans to refill the fund. For now, restaurants and other businesses are having to once again find new ways to stay open and stay safe.

Kyle Cooke is the digital media manager for Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at kylecooke@rmpbs.org.