Restaurants have had to innovate to survive in the past 14 months during the pandemic. With Illinois set to lift all COVID-19 capacity restrictions on June 11, local Elmwood Park restaurant owners and operators are looking back on a year full of challenges and looking forward to what should be the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
“We definitely have seen an increase in revenue with every passing month,” said Edwin Arreola, co-owner of Massa Cafe Italiano, 7434 W. North Avenue, and Gringo and Blondie Taqueria, 7514 W. North Avenue.
Massa Cafe Italiano has been in Elmwood Park for 22 years; as an established business with a loyal clientele, Arreola said they were able to adapt to curbside pick-up and delivery. Gringo and Blondie was more of a challenge. It opened in October 2019, just five months before the first major shutdown.
“We had to adapt,” Arreola said. “We gave as many people as much work as possible.”
Arreola said some changes created by the pandemic, such as the increasing use of delivery apps by customers, will never leave the industry.
Arreola, and co-owner Angelo Lollino, worked with staff to stagger time off to minimize the impact of the slowdown on employees. He also said the restaurants sometimes provided food to employees.
“We kept our teams and employees fed at no charge,” he said. “We are blessed to have the staff we have. We have a great team.”
At Trattoria Peppino, 7440 North Avenue, sales dropped precipitously during the pandemic. “It was pretty bad, but we survived,” said General Manager George Metaxas.
With a substantial in-house dining experience and private events business, Trattoria Peppino had challenges to overcome. The restaurant relied on curbside pickup and delivery business to get by early in the pandemic.
Now, with more and more people returning to eating indoors, the restaurant is making some changes, fueled in part by federal small business loans issued as part of the pandemic relief.
“People come out to eat for the experience,” Metaxas said. “For the atmosphere.”
The restaurant has added fresh flowers, a candlelit ambiance, new silverware and plates, and updated furniture. Outside, the restaurant is updating the patio to create a more rustic, Italian atmosphere. All of it is being done to bring back customers who, perhaps, got out of the habit of going out for dinner.
“They’re coming back; it’s time to come back,” Metaxas said. “Our customers love our restaurant, and they love our food.”
At Slice Factory, 1732 N. Harlem Avenue, husband and wife Nino Faso and Silvana DiDiana had just taken over ownership of the restaurant in October 2019, months before the first major shutdown in March 2020.
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“All of our dine-in sales just stopped on March 17,” DiDiana said.
“We were obviously scared at first,” Faso said. “That first week, people were not going out at all.”
However, dine-in was not central to their business. Soon, the result of the pandemic actually meant more business for drive-thru and curbside pick up—the central focus of Slice Factory.
“We had a lot of people coming in looking for jobs who had worked for primarily dine-in restaurants,” Faso said.
DiDiana said that the restaurant focused its marketing on free coupons and emphasized delivery and curbside pick-up availability. With restrictions being lifted, the duo focuses on making sure dine-in customers and their employees feel comfortable and safe.
“If you ever are going to open your own business,” Faso said. “Just know that you can’t know everything that is going to happen. One day you are on top of the world, and the next day, you might be saying, ‘Why the hell did I do that.'”