Regina restaurant Avenue planning to wait before reopening

For the past two months, the tables and booths at Avenue in downtown Regina have been sitting empty thanks to pandemic public health orders.

As of June 8, restaurants across the province will be able to have customers in for dine-in service, but Avenue won’t be among those flinging open their doors on the first day.

“We’re going to give it a week or two, just to kind of gauge how busy other restaurants are, things like that,” said owner Christopher Cho.

He explained he wants to know whether people are comfortable going out to a restaurant, and whether the restaurant can make enough money.

The province has many guidelines on how to safely reopen, one of which is that restaurants can only fill to half of its capacity. Cho said that could make it hard to make enough to pay all the expenses, pay staff, and pay rent.

Cho said the restaurants he’s involved with have got rent relief from landlords, but he said many haven’t and that’s going to be a struggle.

Staffing is another reason Cho said he wants to wait to open. All the staff were laid off when Avenue closed for the pandemic, and Cho said he wouldn’t want to open and hire everyone back, only to have to lay them off again if the restaurant couldn’t make enough money or if outbreaks forced it to close again.

“That’s pretty hard on us, it’s pretty hard on them, it’s definitely hard on the business, and it’s just something that we don’t want to try to relive,” said Cho.

A new restaurant

Cho said before reopening, he’s going to have to go through everything, break down all the costs, and rebuild it all like he’s opening a brand new restaurant.

“(We’ll treat it) like we’ve never opened before, in terms of cleaning everything up from the numbers to the staff level, to everything. It’s just about being prepared and knowing what you’re getting yourself into, really,” said Cho.

Cho said menu prices may have to go up as producers, manufacturers and suppliers have raised prices for things like proteins and vegetables.

“We just hope that the general public is on board with us as well and they’re aware that the price that we do put on our menus is, obviously, temporary,” he said. “But it’s based on market price.”

Changes in the restaurant

The menu will also be changing, said Cho. He said the restaurants in which he’s involved have always had a good variety of menu choices but when they reopen they’ll have a more condensed menu so the restaurants can keep fewer products on hand.

As for structural changes in the restaurant, Cho couldn’t say what will be done.

Avenue is a smaller space with tables and chairs set fairly close together, but that likely will have to change before any opening.

At the time he spoke to 980 CJME, no details had been released by the province on guidelines for restaurants like how far diners will have to be from each other or what kind of personal protective equipment servers might have to wear.

“Do guests seat themselves? Do our hosts or hostess still bring them to the table? There’s a lot of information that’s still kind of missing in terms of us making that final decision of when we should open,” said Cho.

Cho said the restaurant has been reaching out to find gloves and masks and already has some on hand in case Avenue ends up opening earlier than originally planned.

In the meantime

Avenue has been offering takeout options on Fridays and Saturdays, and Cho said it has been very successful. The restaurant makes 200 portions a week and it has been selling out.

“The support of the city has been unbelievable,” said Cho.

The restaurant has also been offering take-home cocktail kits which include all the spirits, syrups and herbs needed for a cocktail that can then be made at home.

Cho said it’s an offering that was developed after the pandemic started, and he thinks it’ll continue after because it has been so popular.