Some Fresno restaurants, businesses close temporarily from COVID impacts, staff shortages
As COVID-19 surges in Fresno, a handful of restaurants and other businesses are closing temporarily or shortening hours.
A combination of existing staffing shortages and the county experiencing the largest increase in new COVID cases in almost a year has left some businesses without enough workers to open.
They’re not all sick. Some are quarantining because they’ve been exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID. Others are scrambling to find a test so they can test negative and go back to work.
Piemonte’s Italian Delicatessen in the Tower District, for example, closed early last Friday and stayed closed Saturday, before reopening Monday.
“It’s not that so many of my employees have gotten it, but their spouses have, their roommate or someone has, and because we didn’t want to take any chances, we said, ‘You better quarantine,’” said owner Nancy Eberwein.
Both she and her husband were also recovering from mild cases of COVID and isolating at home.
The Tower District deli has about 12 workers during normal times. Lately, they’ve had seven. With three or four people out, they didn’t have enough workers to open Saturday, she said.
The restaurant has also reduced its hours because there are fewer workers.
“I’m all for trying to stop the spread of this stuff,” she said of COVID. “The only thing I hope that people do understand is that we’re doing it for their safety.”
Also in the Tower District, Hi-Top Coffee announced on its Facebook page that it closed for two days between Christmas and New Year’s after an employee tested positive.
The days allowed other workers to get tested. The coffee shop reopened with limited hours with employees who had been working in their roastery and not exposed to the infected employee.
Tabachines Cocina, an upscale Mexican restaurant at Palm and Herndon avenues, shared on Instagram that it closed last weekend “to give our team much deserved time off to spend time with their families.”
The restaurant has since resumed normal operations.
Stores, dance clubs, other businesses
And it’s not just restaurants.
Yoshi NOW!, which has a handful of workers at its downtown secondhand shop, closed temporarily after a worker tested positive, it shared on social media.
FAB Fresno, a nightclub and LGBT bar in the Tower District, announced last week that it was closing until Feb. 9.
That decision didn’t stem from an employee shortage, but a desire to protect employees and customers from the spreading omicron variant, according to FAB’s post.
COVID shortens hours
Some businesses are also shortening hours because they don’t have enough employees.
The Revue, a coffee shop in Tower, has temporarily scaled back its hours to 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., a change from its normal 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“This is mostly due to short staffing, as well as some COVID exposures amongst staff. We are keeping safe and following state and local guidelines to deal with this,” it said in an Instagram post that also encouraged customers to wear masks.
Even Macy’s shortened hours at all its stores nationwide for the rest of January. Stores are now open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, shaving off an hour at each end of the workday.
Staff shortages
No one wants to shut their business, said Raul Gutierrez Jr., owner of Papi’s Mex Grill and president of the Fresno chapter of the California Restaurant Association.
“No restaurateur is trying to close down on purpose,” he said. “They want to be open. We want to serve our customers.”
He said he’s heard of some restaurants missing 30% of their staff.
If workers test positive, it can be five or 10 days before they get a negative test and can return to work, he noted. Difficulty finding tests can slow that timeline down even more.
The restaurant association, along with the Fresno County Department of Public Health and several other business organizations, are working on a plan to distribute COVID tests to restaurants and their workers.
In the meantime, we may see more short-term closures, but Gutierrez hopes this is a temporary trend that will end when this wave of infections has subsided.
The employee shortages also put pressure on the remaining employees, he added. For example, a server might go from covering four tables at a time to six or seven when co-workers are out.
“That’s a lot more work, a lot more mental work you have to do,” he said.
Most customers are understanding, he said, but not all. Workers have had to deal with grumpy or rude customers.
“The hard part is the emotional and mental toll it takes on not just the owner, but the employees who are there working, … They can only take so much,” Gutierrez said. “We really hope customers can be sympathetic to the fact that we’re trying our best.”
This story was originally published January 11, 2022 at 12:39 PM.
