🔒Editorial: Pull out all the stops for the restaurant industry

A lively restaurant scene is vital to the economies of Central Massachusetts communities like Worcester, Marlborough and Sturbridge. As shown in WBJ’s “No Limits” story on page 8 – our latest collaboration with the Worcester Regional Research Bureau – these communities have helped build this buzzy industry thanks in part to their eschewing of the traditional Massachusetts law capping liquor licenses. Now, as restaurants continue to reel from the coronavirus pandemic, governments throughout the region need to do everything in their power to help them survive the crisis.

Restaurants do not produce an economic output even close to sectors like manufacturing, nor do they have the large numbers of highly paid workers like the healthcare and higher education industries, but it's an important sector speaking to the vitality of a region. Worcester wouldn’t in the last few years have attracted commercial and residential developers, life science firms, and the Boston Red Sox Triple A affiliate if not for the reputation of its restaurant scene. Restaurants help attract other businesses, and they are vital in keeping workers at those companies out and about past working hours, which is why Marlborough placed such importance on brewpubs and restaurants in its push to be known as an 18-hour destination, rather than a corporate hub with drive-in, drive-out workers.

As the restaurant industry flounders under the tough regulations imposed by the state in the effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the answer for restaurants isn’t necessarily all Central Mass. communities lifting their liquor license caps. That could create more competition, when the focus should be on helping the existing businesses.

These efforts to help should include accommodations restaurants have been asking for. Worcester lifted outdoor dining restrictions earlier this year in order to help restaurants reopen their dining rooms. Yet, as Michael Covino, president and CEO of Worcester’s Niche Hospitality Group, pointed out at the time, restaurants without previous outdoor dining had to make significant investments to offer the service, which wouldn’t pan out unless Worcester eased the restrictions for a couple years. To this end, Worcester needs to make outdoor dining a fixture of its street-use policies well into the future. With the pandemic, the overall focus should remain on safety and reducing contagion, but restrictions on restaurants – including alcoholic beverage sales and takeout rules – should be kept at a minimum until the region returns to more normal conditions.

The end of the pandemic is still a ways off. Most restaurants operate on very thin margins to begin with, and most of its workers are on the lower end of the income spectrum. Without additional help, more establishments will close down permanently as the months fall off the calendar.