Las Vegas restaurant owners say uncertainty their biggest challenge

Gov. Steve Sisolak said Tuesday that he would talk to restaurant owners about their minimum-capacity needs to reopen after the shutdown. But several Southern Nevada restaurateurs said they are more focused on just surviving.

“It’s a tough one,” said Matthew Silverman, a JRS Hospitality partner. The challenge facing JRS is particularly daunting since all of its restaurants — Hexx and Beer Park at Paris Las Vegas, Cabo Wabo in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood Resort, Chayo at The Linq Hotel and Big Chicken on Paradise Road — are dependent on tourism.

“If you say open at 25 percent” capacity, Silverman said, “are there going to be enough people on the Strip to fill them?”

Those with restaurants elsewhere have challenges of their own.

“If it’s 30 percent or 35 percent, we’re not doomed, but we’re not in a good place,” said Juan Vazquez, owner of Juan’s Flaming Fajitas on West Tropicana Avenue in Las Vegas and on Water Street in Henderson. “If he allows us to have table separation, which would be about 50 percent, 60 percent, that would be tremendous.”

Like Vazquez, Kris Parikh, owner of the Mint Indian Bistros on Flamingo Road just east of the Strip and on Durango Road as well as Divine Dosas & Biryanis on the Strip, had started spacing out tables before the shutdown. Parikh plans to continue limiting capacity with just two reservation-only seatings at lunch and dinner, but he said he’s aware that his large dining rooms are more conducive to spacing.

And Ann Alenik understands the opposite of the equation.

“Being a small business, limiting the capacity is a difficult thing,” said Alenik, owner of Pasta Shop Ristorante & Art Gallery in Henderson, which has just 55 seats. “We’re so small to begin with.”

And if restaurants are to be limited to a percentage of their regular capacity rather than a set spacing of, say, 6 feet between tables, a place such as Pasta Shop, where the tables aren’t as close as in some dining rooms, would be at a further disadvantage.

But the restaurateurs said potential capacity isn’t as daunting now as the degree of uncertainty. Vazquez initially offered takeout at Juan’s in Henderson, then stopped, then started again this week.

“We were going to wait and see what the governor said,” he said. “Initially it was April 17, and then he extended it to May 1. With no end in sight, I had to do something.”

“My contention is that any of the specifics of capacity are so arbitrary,” said Grant Turner, owner of The Dillinger, Evan’s Old Town Grille, Forge Social House and The Tap in Boulder City. “What we need is hope. We need momentum. Right now, there isn’t even a pinhole of light at the end of this tunnel.

“Anything is better than what we see now,” he said. “People are dying on the vine. You see people’s spirits just breaking. My staff, who are so positive, they’ve been just troupers. They’ve all had their hours cut, but the people who need them the most are getting them. It’s been very inspiring to see my staff coming together. They’re smiling through it, but you’re seeing their smiles start to dim.”

Turner said he has talked to some restaurant owners who are just about to give up. He compared the situation to someone who’s rowing a boat in dense fog.

“At some point, you’re just rowing” with no idea of where the shoreline is, he said. “You would hate to be the person who gives up rowing and, when the fog clears, you’re 10 feet from the coastline. Businesses need some idea of a finish line. Right now, we’ve been given no indication that that even exists.”

“Even with the takeout that we started,” Vazquez said, “it’s OK, but the only thing that’s really going to do is help with payroll and insurance.

“Is it worth it to open? Should I just call it a day?”

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.