Miami Restaurants Shift To Takeout Business Amid Coronavirus

MIAMI BEACH, FL — The iconic Joe's Stone Crab restaurant in South Beach typically would have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day Tuesday with its customers but instead the business was shutting down its dining room and focusing instead on its takeout clientele amid the growing threat of the new coronavirus.

Joe's was not alone. Similar scenes played out at restaurants in Miami, Miami Beach and other communities in Miami-Dade County as the number of confirmed cases has risen to 314 in Florida, including 25 people from other states who are in Florida. Restaurants like Joe's will only be able to keep their kitchens open if they shift to a takeout business starting Wednesday.

"This is a major shutdown and it's unfortunate, but the community is going to step up," explained Miami-Dade Commissioner Sally A. Heyman in an interview with Patch. "If we're going to stand in a situation of waiting for the next shoe to drop, and the next crisis to occur, it's too late."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered all bars and nightclubs throughout the state to close for the next 30 days. The governor ordered all restaurants in the state to limit customers to 50 percent of capacity and practice social distancing but allowed counties to take more significant measures as in the case of Miami-Dade and Fort Lauderdale.

In Miami-Dade and Fort Lauderdale this means there will be no more dining at restaurants for the foreseeable future as elected officials grapple with how to slow the spread of the mysterious illness that was first spotted in China last year.

"We need to try and keep getting in front of the next anticipated precautionary measure," Heyman said. "We need to stop the spread. Once we do that, for the first time it will be controllable. Right now it's not."

She acknowledged thousands of Miami-Dade workers who depend on the hospitality industry for their livelihoods will be out of a job for a time though she said some restaurants like Joe's Stone Crab and Cafe Versailles in nearby Miami were planning to pay staff for a time and shift as many workers as possible to takeout operations.

"Hopefully others will pay it forward to their employees," she said of other businesses. "What's incredible is other than hurricanes, we haven't seen people tighten up and make significant lifestyle changes in our entire generations. We're talking to each other. We're phoning. We're writing. We're dialogueing. Hopefully we're staying home."

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber told reporters Tuesday the decisions officials have had to take at the local, state and federal levels have been hard to swallow.

"We are a community that is essentially set up to invite people here, to dance at weddings, to embrace on their honeymoons, to do team-building exercises with their companies and reunions — families — where hugging is what you do," the mayor said. "For us, this is turning us on our head."

Similar measures were also announced Tuesday in nearby Fort Lauderdale by Mayor Dean Trantalis. Fort Lauderdale is in Broward County, where there have been more cases of COVID-19 than in any of Florida's 67 counties.

All non-essential businesses in Miami-Dade County must close Wednesday until further notice, according to officials.

This includes all restaurants, hotel dining rooms, bars, nightclubs, movie theaters, concert houses, auditoriums, playhouses, bowling alleys, arcades, gyms and fitness studios.

Restaurant and hotel kitchens may continue to operate until midnight each day for takeout and food delivery service.

"It strikes me very strange and very sad to be standing here in the main dining room of my family's restaurant ... with chairs up on the tables, no employees running around doing their jobs, no customers here," Joe's co-owner Stephen Sawitz said Tuesday. "It's a very empty and sad feeling."

He said he planned to give his employees who are unable to work at least two weeks pay. The restaurant employs 450 people but a number of them will continue to work in the takeout business.

"The most beautiful thing that I saw was that people came up to me and asked me how I was doing and how my mom was doing. That's what our fishermen did too," Sawitz recalled. "Our fishermen are going to have to start pulling their traps. That's the way it is."

Businesses excluded from the mandatory closings include pharmacies, grocery stores, convenience stores, private offices, banks, hotels, hospitals, medical service providers, medical supply stores, hardware stores, gasoline service stations and auto supply or repair centers.

"This is a terrible moment for us," added Felipe Valls Jr., president of the equally iconic Versailles Restaurant in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami as well as the La Caretta Cuban restaurants. "We have over 2,000 employees and it's very, very difficult. It's heartbreaking for us, mainly because of our employees."

He said he will be ramping up deliveries at his 10 locations in Miami-Dade County and keep his hourly workers for an unspecified number of weeks. "It's not going to be enough obviously," he said. "It's going to be heartbreaking for many families. We're trying to pay as many as we can for as long as we can, but inevitably at some point it's just impossible."

In addition to the restaurant closings, any group of more than 10 people in Miami Beach will be banned and dispersed, according to city officials.

"I am one of those who believes we are going to get through this and there is going to be sunshine in the Sunshine State at the end of the day," Gelber said. "One of the reasons we're taking such difficult measures now is we want them to come sooner rather than later."