Is Dining Out?

The white tablecloths glow and the candles flicker, but the maître d’ is liable to be clicking his heels by the front door, wondering where the diners are.

At the pub around the corner or at the sandwich shop down the road, perhaps.

Washington’s restaurant business has taken a beating this year. The industry—the state’s largest employer—shed nearly 7,000 of its 201,000 employees in January; another 1,000 were laid off in February. Many restaurants are struggling not only because of the economy, but also because of wicked December weather. Across the state, snow forced businesses to cancel company Christmas parties, leaving restaurants holding an especially pricy tab.

“The industry needs to get fat in December,” says Anthony Anton, president and CEO of the Washington Restaurant Association (WRA). “Ideally, restaurants are putting away nuts in December to survive for the next three months. When Christmas parties are snowed out, they [restaurants] don’t get rebooked for February.”

That downturn means many restaurants are experiencing a deficit in cash, the very supply that most use to buoy themselves through the slower winter months.

So which restaurants are on simmer and which are going cold? Seattle institutions—where layoffs downtown affected the dining business—have been hit hard, as have fine dining establishments and those catering to the business lunch and expense account. Many iconic establishments, including Walla Walla’s 26Brix, Seattle’s Typhoon! and Tacoma’s Sea Grill have shut their doors.

And yet, hope glimmers somewhere on the horizon. Neighborhood eateries, it turns out, are weathering the economic storm reasonably well. At some Seattle restaurants, such as Endolyne Joe’s, the Hi-Life and the 5 Spot, the morning breakfast run has been holding steady and even seeing some growth, according to Jeremy Hardy, co-founder and managing partner of Chow Foods, those eateries’ parent company. And while traffic during the p.m. shift has been down, check orders have remained consistent, he says. 

What’s more, despite the recession and a public bent on maximizing its dining bargains and minimizing its tabs, new restaurants continue to hang out their sandwich boards. Take, for example, Homegrown Sustainable Sandwich Shop, which opened in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood March 24. Within a month, the organic, quick service eatery was exceeding its profit expectations.

That kind of success is due in part to the restaurant’s business model: Quick service establishments—places where you order at the counter and bus your own silverware—are faring well, garnering more of the check. Experts say this situation is due in part to super-busy consumers realizing they still want to eat out. So instead of foregoing restaurants altogether, they have changed habits. When it’s healthy

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