More restaurants are temporarily closing as the Omicron variant surges in New York City, and financial concerns exist even for workers whose restaurants have remained open. chrisecrowley reports
A New York City restaurant over the weekend. Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images Last week, as the Omicron variant made its presence known in New York and a number of the city’s restaurants closed as a safety precaution, a bartender named Andy told me his bar would stay open for a holiday party even after members of the staff had tested positive for COVID. The day after that party, he followed up to let me know he too had now tested positive. “I feel crummy,” he wrote, “but I’ll be okay.
One server described the situation at her pizzeria, where she works part-time, as “hour by hour.” Her shifts over the weekend were canceled, and now she’s in an employment limbo that feels eerily reminiscent of 2020. “There’s a concern about whether this is temporary or longer,” she says. “Not permanent in that the restaurant would not exist anymore, but just that I would have to try and get back on unemployment, which is another beast.
Some places that have temporarily closed are paying their staff — though that’s the exception, not the rule, in an industry where there’s no guaranteed paid time off. Those restaurants include Ridgewood’s Porcelain, which canceled its dinner service over the weekend, and Oxalis in Prospect Heights, which, partner and director of operations Steve Wong says, is paying staff their regular hourly rates.
Right now, it’s expected that Omicron will peak in New York sometime in January. Workers and owners alike are expressing uncertainty about the next few weeks and how that will play out. Will there be more temporary shutdowns? Some wondered if they would be out of work.
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