Bayside Restaurant, Bar Owners Gear Up For Coronavirus Closure

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — The citywide shutdown of bars and restaurants, wrought by the spread of the new coronavirus, has left Bayside's small business owners with some hard choices — and hundreds of pounds of corned beef.

The upcoming closure, which starts 8 p.m. Monday, forces eateries to halt all operations other than takeout and delivery. In the heavily Irish neighborhood of Bayside, bar and restaurant owners say that timing robs them of a major lifeline: St. Patrick's Day.

"I cooked my normal 700 pounds of corned beef, then I was told 24 hours before that I wasn't able to serve it inside my restaurant," Jeff Reinhart, manager of Monahan & Fitzgerald, told Patch.

The Irish pub will instead offer its traditional St. Patrick's Day dishes by the tray for curbside pickup, but Reinhart said the closure will deal the business a major blow.

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"I'm going to wind up selling a few trays of corned beef and that's it," he said.

Even at some of Bayside's biggest watering holes, business owners say the closure will be devastating.

Mark Boccia, who runs Bourbon Street Cafe and One Station Plaza, said St. Patrick's Day is "one of our biggest holidays of the year."

"There are hundreds and hundreds of pounds of corned beef and kegs of beer that we have ordered for St. Patrick's Day and bands we had to cancel, events we had to cancel," Boccia said. "It really hurts."

Boccia, who also owns Austin's Ale House in Kew Gardens, said his restaurants will offer delivery and home catering during the mandated closure but that it won't be enough to keep his businesses afloat. He expects to lay off more than a hundred employees across the three spots.

"It crushes me," he told Patch in a phone interview. "Most of our people in the restaurants have been with us for years and years and years."

Press 195 owner Chris Evans encouraged Bayside residents to support local businesses by ordering takeout and delivery and buying gift cards to use later, but he's worried he'll still come up short.

"Takeout and delivery isn't enough to sustain the cost of running a business and being able to keep staff working and pay the bills," Evans said.

His strategy right now, he said, is to take things day by day: "News changes so fast."

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