Greenwich Village Restaurants Brace For Coronavirus Closure

GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN — Exactly what a coronavirus-led shutdown of tri-state area businesses will mean for the Greenwich Village's bustling restaurant industry was still unclear, even with hours to go before eateries closed up shop Monday evening.

"The news is still pretty fresh — a lot of people are just beginning to really process what it means," Ashley Mondesire, a manager at Jane on Houston Street said. "There's a lot up in the air right now."

The shutdown — first announced for New York City by Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday and followed by a statewide mandate by Gov. Andrew Cuomo Monday — will force all bars, restaurants, casinos, movie theaters and gyms to close up shop by 8 p.m. until the governor deems them safe to reopen.

Restaurants will still be allowed to offer takeout and delivery, but many restaurant staff Patch spoke with said they were still deciding whether that would even be an option.

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Mondesire said the coronavirus pandemic, which had climbed to nearly 500 cases as of Monday, had already slowed business to the point where Jane's owners were figuring out if takeout was worth keeping staff on board.

Their usual crowd of 600 Saturday and Sunday brunch patrons had barely surpassed 150 both days last weekend, Mondesire said.

"It's slowed tremendously," she said.

Things weren't much different a few blocks away at popular Belgian eatery Pommes Frites, where owner Omer Shorshi said business had all but ground to a halt.

"We don't even have delivery or pick-up now — nobody is ordering," he said. "I don't know how long we can keep that available and keep workers without getting revenue."

Shorshi said whether the restaurant will survive will depend on how long the closure lasts and whether delivery orders pick up.

"We have tons of bills that keep coming in and we don't know if we can pay for those," Shorshi said. "Hopefully we don't have to walk away."

Whether the businesses would go under was only compounded by the worry for restaurant workers who would lose their income as the eateries cut back on staff.

Both restaurants have been operating with a bare minimum staff for the last week and would likely shift to only a few workers when they close, they said.

"We're taking it pretty hard," Mondesire said, referring to her and the two other managers that run Jane. "This is like our baby so to see it have to be closed down — it's very uncertain. We're really close with our staff and we're already worried about them and ourselves."

On a personal level, Mondesire said she worried about how to support her family, including her 7-year-old daughter who is now home since New York City's public schools closed this week. Her husband, who also works in the restaurant industry, had been laid off from his job at Freehold in Brooklyn because of the pandemic's affect on business, she said.

Ultimately, though, Mondesire said she understands the closures had to be done.

"It's going to create a lot of difficulties for a lot of people, but there is a responsibility for just general public safety," she said. "If they don’t do something to separate us all I don’t know where we’d be."