LANCASTER, Pa. — Even as Valentine’s Day weekend saw booked out restaurants across Pennsylvania, the restaurant industry continues to struggle amid pandemic restrictions and winter weather.
Romantic dinner dates for Valentine’s Day help make the weekend one of the busiest holidays for restaurants.
“It’s one of the bigger holidays. Maybe smaller parties, but big holiday,” said Lisa Farwell, manager of Hennigan’s Restaurant and Bar in Mount Joy.
The holiday is especially important for restaurants fighting through a winter of restrictions and closures.
Hennigan’s has closed three times so far.
Meanwhile Belvedere Inn in Lancaster had to close down all of January due to limited indoor capacity. They reopened last week, in time for Valentine’s Day.
“We are a fine dining restaurant. We are a couples’ destination, so it is one of our most profitable weekends of the year,” said John Costanzo, Belvedere Inn’s managing partner.
The restaurant set up a roof deck with three outdoor dining pods. But extra business barely offsets the cost of the structures themselves and electric fireplaces installed in each.
“We're as busy as we can be. Operating at 50 percent, we're full with the tables that we have available, six feet apart and everything like that,” Costanzo said. “Unfortunately it's still not the benchmark that we need to be at this point.”
Others, like Hennigan’s, wary of customers who don’t want to eat in the cold, don’t use their outdoor facilities in the winter.
The upside, owners said, was that people were sick of staying home and were ready to socialize and reconnect.
“They are ecstatic to be able to be out and interactive with our staff,” Farwell said.
Farwell said she felt hopeful for a greater return to dining with spring and a full vaccine rollout now on the horizon.