Washington Heights Restaurants Brace For Coronavirus Closure

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — For longtime Washington Heights watering hole Coogan's, this week is typically the busiest time of the year.

With track and field championships at the neighboring Armory Track and St. Patrick's Day, the restaurant builds up its inventory weeks in advance to prepare for crowds of hungry customers.

But this year, with a coronavirus-led shutdown of all restaurants, bars and other businesses, that's all changed, owner Peter Walsh said.

"We are stocked up with the most amount of liquor, the most amount of food and now we have the least amount of people to eat and drink," Walsh said. "We're calling up purveyors and saying, 'Okay we don't need this.'"

Instead, Walsh is starting to send as much of the inventory as he can back. Like all other restaurants in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, Coogan's will close to in-person dining at 8 p.m. Monday.

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The shutdown — first announced for New York City by Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday and followed by a statewide mandate by Gov. Andrew Cuomo Monday — applies to all bars, restaurants, casinos, movie theaters and gyms.

It's left New York City restaurants, who will only be allowed to offer takeout and delivery, struggling to figure out what to do, and whether they can survive the indefinite closure.

For Coogan's, the plan will become a balance of what the neighborhood needs and what owners of the 35-year-old restaurant will need to do to keep it from going under, Walsh said.

The first decision in that vain will be whether the restaurant, which usually doesn't do deliveries, will start to offer them for people who are heeding officials' advice to wait out the pandemic at home.

"If people count on us we'll stay open for deliveries, but if they're not counting on us we'll close," Walsh said. "We’ll do for the common good, but we’ll also do for our survival."

Galicia Tapas, a bar and restaurant on West 207th Street, also told Patch they are still evaluating whether delivery and takeout is worth it.

An employee there and Walsh said a lot of that will depend on whether the government-mandated closure comes with assistance for the businesses.

"We have the same questions everybody else has in regards to rent and all that stuff," Adrian, the employee at Galicia said. "We hear rumors of low percentage loans — right now it's just rumors — but it's going to have to be something."

Walsh said he hopes the government will offer rent relief and some kind of income for laid off employees. If not, depending on how long the closure lasts, some businesses won't be able to rebound.

"If this goes to a certain amount of time and it's too difficult to reopen we'll close forever," he said. "This emergency is so unique — this has never happened in our lives."

For Aquamarina restaurant on Broadway, that certain amount of time could even be as soon as a week or two.

"Even one week will take you off your budget," owner Omara Reyes said. "Rent is really high and we won't be able to afford to pay all the bills. We are trying to take care as much as we can."