The lifeblood of downtown Greenville, restaurants fight for survival through pandemic

A sense of unease lingers over downtown Greenville as restaurant owners begin to rebuild their depleted businesses even as they are unsure of what COVID-19 might bring next.

It’s the same in cities and towns across the nation, but it’s an extra worry in this Upstate city of about 65,000 people.

Greenville’s downtown revitalization succeeded in large measure due to its many restaurants, at one time numbering more than 100, most homegrown of every ilk and ethnicity. Several years ago, Southern Living called Greenville a foodie destination.

Now, owners face 30-40% decreases in revenue year over year as the pandemic stretches into its eighth month. COVID-19 cases in the Upstate were highest in mid-July, dropped to the lowest level since the start of the pandemic a month later, and now in fits and starts are overall rising again.

Panagiois “Ty” Kourlas, who manages Greektown Grille, said, “It could still go bad. What do we do if a second round of closing happens?”

Carl Sobocinski, who owns several downtown Greenville restaurants under the Table 301 banner, said S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster’s order to close businesses in the spring decimated the restaurant industry.

In the last month, he has been able to make revenue meet expenses, but the balance sheet is 65% of what they did last year.

“We reached the point where we can survive,” he said.

The local hospitality industry, which includes hotels, restaurants and other tourism, as a whole last year meant direct spending in Greenville County of $1.3 billion. State and local taxes from the county amounted to $77 million, Jennifer Stilwell, executive vice president and chief strategic officer of Visit SC, said.

In 2020, both those figures are likely to be cut by about half. Moreover, 3,700 jobs have been lost from 11,000 in 2019. That amounts to $125 million in lost wages in the hospitality industry in Greenville County, Stilwell said.

Bobby Williams Jr., chairman of the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association and owner of the Lizard’s Thicket restaurants in Columbia and Florence, said the pandemic will likely cause 100,000 restaurants around the country to fail.

In Greenville, so far a handful have closed, and others have said their closure is temporary. Sobocinski said more may go out of business by year’s end.

Downtown Greenville’s restaurant business is inherently tied to travel — business people on weekdays and, increasingly, tourists on weekends.

Greenville has received a lot of national press attention since revitalization downtown for being a good place to visit. Recently, Conde Nast described it as a secret on the “the cusp of stardom.” Restaurants played a big role in the No. 6 “best small cities” ranking, which was based on readers’ votes.

Sobocinski founded Soby’s New South Cuisine in 1997 and has been instrumental in the growth of the city’s restaurant industry. His Table 301, named for a table in Soby’s that overlooks the kitchen, now owns 10 restaurants, all in the downtown area, from juice bar to gastropub to food truck.

He said the pandemic has been disastrous for his catering business. In early March, construction of an expanded catering and sales facility began and quickly shut down when the governor ordered businesses to close in mid-March.

The catering business is off by 50%, even as people begin to eat in restaurants again, Sobocinski said. Ordinarily, he would be preparing for big holiday parties — in his own venues — but people are staging smaller parties if they are having them at all.

Weddings are the same. Fifty guests are the rule; a few have more, he said.

Sobocinski said when his restaurants were forced to close, he furloughed 85% of the staff, cut pay for everyone left and elected not to take a salary for himself. The closure dragged on for six weeks, and once curbside service was allowed, his managers and a couple of cooks handled the orders.

“I was very aware (closing for good) was a distinct possibility,” he said.

But the staff got to work to figure out how they could reopen safely. He bought air purifiers. Menus are one-use only, and cleaning has been stepped up.

Williams said at his Lizard’s Thicket restaurants they clean everything many times, including the door knobs.

“We never cleaned door knobs before,” he said.

At Table 301, they learned how to do take-out on a larger scale.

Once restaurants were allowed to open at 50% capacity in May, a large number of outdoor tables helped Sobocinski’s business recover, as did a mild fall.

They were allowed to open at full occupancy the first week of October.

“People are starting to venture inside,” Sobocinski said. But his locations are still restricting inside seating to 50% and requiring masks.

Williams said he had gone to 100% and quickly dropped back to half because customers protested.

That hesitation from patrons is something Sobocinski doesn’t see abating until next year, if and when there is a vaccine.

Kourlas at Greektown Grille said the six-week closure in the spring resulted in laid-off workers and spoiled food. He and his father and uncle, the owners, wondered whether they could make it through. The situation was further complicated by his father and stepmother getting sick from the virus.

They both recovered.

Kourlas said his restaurant was lucky to receive Paycheck Protection Program funds through the federal government, which got them through the worst times and gave them some funds to restock. A challenge has been that some restaurant items are more expensive than before. He’s had to take lamb chops off the menu because people would not pay as much as he would have to charge.

There are some bright spots. Sobocinski said his juice bar is doing well, the only one with sales that reflect last year. He suspects people want healthier fare.

Another segment in good shape is pizza. The traditionally delivered food is holding its own so much that a national brand, Blaze Pizza, has just opened in downtown.

Sobocinski said he believes it will be April of next year before the restaurant business returns to some semblance of normal.

For Greenville, the key will be getting downtown workers back into their offices and for business travel to rebound, Sobocinski said.

He wonders now that people see the benefits of remote work whether it will ever be the same.

This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 1:42 PM.