Instead of the usual lunchtime clink and clamor at The Domain in North Austin March 17, all that one could hear was the chirping of birds, and the occasional passing of a car.
At Starbuck’s, Nordstrom, Macy’s, and eatery after eatery, the lights were off.
Inside the only restaurants with their doors open, managers and staff huddled anxiously talking, or cleaning and closing up.
Silvia Miranda, a manager, manned the phone near the entrance to Cyclone Anaya’s Tex-Mex Cantina, taking calls from waitstaff anxious to know what was next.
Miranda had mixed news to give to her roughly 20 employees. “The employees are calling to see if we’re gonna be open. We’re working things out to maybe put them in a different position, maybe doing to-gos or pickups,” she said.
Mayor Steve Adler’s public health order, effective March 1 at noon, banned eat-in dining and drinking, but not to-go orders, drive-throughs, and pick-ups.
Rafael Tristan, the General Manager at the Taverna, said his restaurant had already seen a “drastic” drop in sales over the past four days, even before Adler’s latest order.
Yesterday about eight or nine people came in for lunch, compared to the usual 30-35, and nine came for dinner, compared to the usual crowd of as many as 120.
“Today we got one person who dined in before the mayor made his announcement. After that we have three to-go orders.”
Taverna has about 25 hourly employees and five salaried staff, and Tristan says he’ll be able to keep a few of them busy working to fill takeout orders and do cleaning.
“All the money that we can collect on to-go orders, we’re going to make a pool and then see how we’re gonna share with the people that are not able to work. We’re going to try to help them somehow.”
At Houndstooth Coffee, which serves coffee, wine, and beer, the tables and chairs were stacked but the music was on and the door was open. “It’s been difficult to stay positive,” said Emily R., a barista and bartender.
Sean Emrie, the shopkeep, said that they plan to continue filling walk-in to-go orders, which normally account for about 15-20% of business. He said the management also aim to keep paying hourly staff based on their February pay, though they wouldn’t be able to make up for the loss of tips.
At a nearby Indian restaurant, a pair of waitstaff had considered themselves lucky to land a lunchtime shift, after management cut from five hourly staff to two. But now they were looking pretty glum.
A waiter explained that only two or three people had come in to dine when news of the mayor’s order broke. Now, the staff are unsure when they’ll be paid next.
At Doc B’s Restaurant + Bar, the music and TVs were still on at the tail end of the lunch hour, but the place had emptied out. It was too soon to say what would happen next, said Ryan, a manager, but he noted that they have 40-50 staff to think about. “It’s terrible,” he said.
