Westmoreland restaurants scramble to survive state dining ban, coronavirus restrictions

Rizzi DeFabo stood behind the counter inside his family’s popular Rizzo’s Malabar Inn, a 450-seat restaurant in rural Crabtree.

Instead of being packed with hungry customers, DeFabo offered take-out meals only — following the governor’s order for restaurants in an effort to slow the spreading coronavirus.

“This is the first time in the 85-year history of the restaurant that the dining rooms have been dark for two weeks. There’s just nobody inside,” DeFabo said. “It has survived two World Wars and the Great Depression. We’ve never been down.”

Now, the food service business he runs with his father, Jerry, and brother, Jerry Jr., faces the same challenge as other eateries since Gov. Tom Wolf’s ban on dining inside restaurants took effect on March 16. The directive will not be lifted until March 30, at the earliest.

DeFabo said he believes it will go longer.

“This is tough. The profit margins in restaurants are slim already,” said Tony Jioio, owner of the popular Jioio’s Family Restaurant in the Carbon neighborhood of Hempfield.

Without customers being able to sit down and enjoy a Chinese meal, “it’s had a big impact on our business,” said David Chen, owner of Szechuan Garden in Greensburg, which has been open for 25 years.

“We had to shorten up our business hours,” said manager Chad Kaylor, manager of Ianni’s Pizza in Delmont.

“We’re starting to do some specials here and there,” he said. “We had to cut hours for shifts for employees.”

Not having dine-in customers really hurts the waiters and waitresses, DeFabo said.

Because his servers no longer are waiting on customers, DeFabo said he has given them other jobs in the restaurant, such as working the take-out and drive-through service. All 64 employees are working, just less.

“We’re trying to rotate them as much as we can to give them some hours,” DeFabo said.

Jioio said it has been tough to reduce his staff of 23 to about 13.

“Cutting back the hours for the workers, that’s the worst part,” Jioio said.

Instead of five employees working a regular shift at Ianni’s, Kaylor said that has been cut to three.

“We mainly kept our full-time people who are depending on hours to pay their bills. But it’s been really slow, because it’s been takeout only, so we’ve been suffering a bit,” Kaylor said.

Not only has the dining ban hurt, but the ban against the gathering of groups larger than 10 has killed other revenue-generating parts of their businesses — catering and banquets. Both Jioio and DeFabo said that has resulted in the loss of thousands of dollars of business. DeFabo said he has lost about a dozen banquet jobs.

Uncertainty over when the ban will be lifted has created other problems, separate from keeping workers employed, Jioio said.

“How do you plan for a week? How do you order from your vendor” when you don’t know if you will be fully open?, he asked.

Chen said he has to remain open, for a very practical reason.

“I’ve got to work. I’ve got to make money,” he said.

Jioio said he is fortunate, in that he has a strong take-out and delivery business.

“We have a lot of loyal customers. We are lucky in that way,” Jioio said.

Szechuan Garden also is in a better position than restaurants that rely predominantly on dining-in customers.

“We do a lot of take-out and delivery in general,” Chen said. “But, the servers are not getting any money.”