Resilience Is On The Menu

Flashback to early 2020: Harry Singh, Gasser Badawi and Qulen Wright all had plans to expand each of their businesses in the food service industry.

The pandemic changed that — but they’ve found ways to keep going and growing.

Singh, the co-owner of the restaurant House of Naan, was all set to open Pataka, a second Indian restaurant on Howe Street, this time in partnership with his brother Romy Singh.

Wright, meanwhile, was exploring plans of expanding the popular vegan restaurant Ninth Square Market Caribbean, while Badawi, the owner of Pitaziki Mediterranean Grill, had a deal in place to open a second location in the city of Stamford.

Months after the shock of the pandemic and the recession that has followed, all three restaurant owners have discovered new reserves of resilience, and ways to move forward despite the tanking economy.

Two weeks ago, Singh and his brother Romy finally opened Pataka, having made the decision to push ahead with their launch after a delay.

According to Singh, the decision was motivated in part by a realization that the restaurant industry was changing. Pataka is a fast casual restaurant that specializes in delivery and takeout orders, a model that Singh believes will be better suited to emerging trends in the restaurant industry

“The industry is changing. The pandemic is an example, but it only sped us up in a direction we were moving towards anyway,” he said. 

When the pandemic first hit, Singh had to shut down dining and lay off almost all his staff at House of Naan. He’s now been able to bring a majority of them back with the same wages. House of Naan has some outdoor seating, and he plans to use heat lamps to extend dine-in options as long as possible into the winter.

House of Naan also has an alcohol license, which makes him confident that he will be able to sustain the business on weekends, when he expects demand for a full sit-in experience will be high.

But he remains unsure about the future. ​“Can we sustain ourselves from sales between Friday and Sunday alone? We’ll see what happens,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Opening Pataka, Singh explained, will give him a better chance at managing the uncertainty of this moment. While House of Naan employs eight people, Pataka requires just four, since there are no waiters or bartenders. With less elaborate meals, a smaller space, and fewer employees, Singh predicts that restaurants like Pataka with lower overhead are the model for long-term sustainability.

He also pointed to the rising popularity of applications like UberEats, GrubHub and SnackPass as a sign that customers are increasingly turning towards takeout and delivery meals.

Karandeep Singh, Harry Singh’s business partner at House of Naan, agreed that the pandemic had made him realize the importance of building resilience — something he has pursued by investing in real estate. ​“I realized that anything can happen in life, and that we need different paths to survival. My incomes from real estate helped me make sure I could provide for the people who I needed to take care of. You should always have a backup plan,” he said.

Badawi (pictured), who owns and manages Pitaziki Mediterranean Grill, has also had his plans thrown off course by the pandemic.

Pitaziki had to shut down for only a short period of time, and made sure not to lay off any employees. ​“Many of them have been here for years. They’re like family,” said Badawi.

But Badawi had also worked for several months to open a second storefront in Stamford. The pandemic ​“shut down the dream, at least for now.” Instead, Badawi has decided to focus on his New Haven location, building a new menu that is better suited to ensuring a safe takeout process.

For example, all parts of the meal are packed individually, so that each customer can assemble a meal at home. Badawi said he hopes that the community can work together to maintain safe distancing. ​“If everybody does their part, we’ll be able to get over this nightmare,” he said.

Qulen Wright (pictured), who co-owns the vegan restaurant Ninth Square Market Caribbean Style with his wife Alysha, was also hoping to expand before the onset of the pandemic. He is ​“playing it by ear” now, and has instead made adaptations to protect the business and his family.

Wright estimated that he has suffered a 60 – 70 percent reduction in sales — around half of which he attributes to the shrinking of catering orders, an important source of revenue in the past. ​“This type of business is always unpredictable, but catering helped ride that over in the past,” Wright explained.

For Wright, the largest source of support has come in the form of his extended family. Their only employee is also from Jamaica, and stays in the same household. As a result, Wright did not qualify for federal government assistance in the form of Paycheck Protection Program loans. But that also ensured that they did not have to face the same questions related to employees — either of finances, ethics, or of safety — that other businesses have had to grapple with.

Wright and his wife have a daughter, and have been careful to make sure she stays safe. Two of their extended family members are working from home into June 2021, allowing her to stay with them while they run the restaurant. Wright’s daughter stays at their relatives’ house for part of the week to be able to take online classes, and the couple decided to close the restaurant on Mondays and Tuesdays so that they can spend the other half of the week with their daughter.

Wright is also confident that some of the innovations they made in the past will keep them in good stead.

“One of the lessons we’ve learnt is that we have a niche. No other place offers this type of vegan food,” he said. ​“It could be worse.”