Thousands of Hartford-based workers have been telecommuting for about five months, with no official return to the office in sight. The city’s theaters are dark, the XL Center is empty and the Yard Goats never took the field at Dunkin’ Donuts Park this season. Without business lunches and event-goers looking for dinner and drinks, Hartford’s downtown restaurants are hurting.
Max Downtown, Max Restaurant Group’s flagship restaurant on Asylum Street, has been a power-lunch destination since it opened in 1996, but it’s currently closed, with plans to reopen in September. The restaurant underwent a full-scale renovation in 2017.
“Our business model in that location for years has been arts, entertainment and business,” said Max Downtown managing partner Steven Abrams. “[We’re] in CityPlace; we have a very, very, very little amount of traffic in that building.”
Restaurants relying on business from downtown office workers heard more bad news earlier this week, as several large employers, including Aetna, The Hartford and Raytheon Technologies, announced plans to keep employees working at home through 2020. Abrams said a large portion of Max Downtown’s business dining comes from the area insurers.
Agave Grill on Allyn Street normally relies heavily on lunch sales, especially in the summer, said owner Ken McAvoy, as people take weekends to vacation or go to the beach. But the restaurant has also taken a hit, without people occupying corporate offices or flying into Hartford on business.
McAvoy said his revenue is down “significantly” since March 17, when restaurants were initially forced to shutter in Connecticut. The Mexican restaurant has tried to boost business with creative takeout options like build-your-own taco packages and margarita kits, and McAvoy was able to add 15 four-top tables along Allyn to offer outdoor dining. But it still isn’t enough, he said.
“We are losing money week after week,” he said. “We’re just really trying to stay strong and think outside the box. We keep trying to push the business forward, and hope for the best.”
One of Agave’s best recent weeks came after Tropical Storm Isaias lashed Connecticut, leaving about 750,000 state residents without power. Guests in the dark at home came downtown looking for a hot meal, McAvoy said, as did several linemen, staying nearby in Hartford hotels. The restaurant still lost money that week, despite the uptick in business.
“Right now, the challenge I think for me and most other restaurants is really just trying to minimize your loss and not necessarily look at your profit,” McAvoy said. “Because there really isn’t any.”
Despite the circumstances, McAvoy said he’s keeping a positive outlook.
“We’ve been here 16 years. Everybody knows Agave,” he said. “We still get people coming from Vernon, Glastonbury, Wethersfield, West Hartford to do takeout with us.”
Loss of business travel has been “tremendous” for Salute on Trumbull Street, said owner Jimmy Cosgrove. The restaurant does a lot of catering for Travelers, Aetna and The Hartford, and normally sees busy weeknights with business visitors in the city.
“On an average Tuesday night, by 6 p.m., you can’t get a table. Tuesday and Wednesday are big corporate nights,” he said.
Salute reopened in the middle of July, making use of its large patio, Cosgrove said, but he’s thinking ahead to the looming colder months. “You try to use the patio as much as you can until October or November, but what do you do when it’s just too cold, and it’s [restricted to] 50% dining [indoors], and people aren’t comfortable eating inside?”
Cosgrove said after 10 “really, really good years” at Salute, he’s been able to put away some capital, and he thinks he’ll be able to get through the current downturn. He’s concerned about others in the city, though.
“My fear is that the end of the day, in Hartford, who’s going to be left standing?” he said.
Jamie McDonald, who co-owns Bear’s Smokehouse on Front Street and Blind Pig Pizzeria on Arch Street, said foot traffic is “very quiet” in the area, which normally sees crowds from Travelers, UConn’s Hartford campus and Hartford City Hall. While lunch is typically the busiest meal, he said, he’s seen business shift to dinner hours instead.
“Thankfully, at least for us at Bear’s, we’ve always pulled a lot of customers from the suburbs,” he said.
Bear’s business is still down about 35 to 40% from this time last year, McDonald said, and has lost a significant amount of sales from catering and events. In a normal year, Bear’s would be vending at Dunkin’ Donuts Park, Rentschler Field, the Big E and the Travelers Championship.
McDonald said he hopes Connecticut’s COVID-19 numbers don’t see a spike, as that could be catastrophic for businesses. “As long as things don’t reverse, or get shut back down … hopefully Connecticut keeps things under [control] and we don’t go backwards.”
The pandemic has recently claimed one upscale downtown restaurant. Dish Bar & Grill, which debuted in downtown Hartford in 2007, has remained closed since March and will not reopen, said co-owner Bill Carbone. The Main Street restaurant had earned raves for its sleek industrial look and modern twists on comfort food, like short rib meatloaf and lobster pot pie.
Carbone, a partner in Dish Restaurant Group with Dan Keller, said they made the official decision to close Dish as large Connecticut employers announced that workers would not return to offices this year. Dish also does a lot of bar business, which wouldn’t be feasible with Phase 3 of Connecticut’s reopening on hold, he said, and there wasn’t suitable space for outdoor tables on their sidewalk.
“Without outdoor dining, with the size of the space, and with very little corporate business downtown at this point in time, without an exact timetable of return, it just doesn’t make sense” to stay open, he said.
The group’s other Hartford restaurant, Sorella, remains open across the street from Dish, with a model better geared for takeout and expanded outdoor dining available on Pratt Street. The partners also own Tavern at Keney Park in Windsor and Dish n’ Dat in Canton.
Other Hartford restaurants have closed temporarily during the pandemic. Republic at the Linden on Capitol Avenue is currently closed for a la carte dining, but has been hosting a farm-to-table dinner series at Bloomfield’s AuerFarm. Max Downtown employees have also joined the team handling Max Chef to Farm’s socially-distanced outdoor dinners at Simsbury’s Rosedale Farms, Abrams said.
In mid-July, Banh Meee closed its Capitol Avenue location until further notice, because the Vietnamese restaurant had suffered an 80% drop in business without regular traffic from nearby state and city offices. Owner Dung “G” Tran shifted operations to Banh Meee’s second location on Ann Uccello Street. Firebox, also in the city’s Frog Hollow neighborhood, closed permanently in early June after 13 years on Broad Street, citing the pandemic and its uncertainty.
Others plan a return to normal business next month. City Steam Brewery and Cafe will reopen Sept. 14, said owner Jay DuMond in an email earlier this month, serving dinner seven nights a week. Its new menu will feature pizzas and items from a gas-fired rotisserie.
Black-Eyed Sally’s will reopen again on Sept. 9, said owner James Varano, hoping to wait out August, which is the restaurant’s slowest month even without the pandemic’s complications. The eatery has been closed since March, a “very painful decision,” he said, and he didn’t expect it to be a nearly six-month closure.
The Southern-style restaurant and bar attempted takeout for about a week, he said, but without enough orders, they were wasting food. They’ve spent the time doing renovations and cosmetic updates they haven’t previously been able to get to.
“We really can’t wait” to open, Varano said. “It’s been way too long.”
At Max Downtown, the restaurant will reopen Sept. 15 with regular hours, full menu and happy hour. “We’re cautiously optimistic, we’re going to make it work,” Abrams said. “We predict our sales will be about 50% of normal. We want to be able to make the numbers work at 50% and we’re going to do our best trying.”
Abrams doesn’t want to cut back on any of the restaurant’s offerings, and in fact wants to add new attractions and events, like wine dinners at less expensive price points.
“The last thing we want to do is make it less attractive for people to come,” he said.
Leeanne Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@courant.com.
