88% of NYC Restaurants Cannot Pay Full Rent, Storefront Vacancies Continue to Increase

By Yehudit Garmaise

  A whopping 88% of New York City restaurants could not pay their full rent last month, and 30% of the city’s eateries could not make their rent all, the NYC Hospitality Alliance reported in a survey released yesterday.

 Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the NYC Hospitality Alliance has been conducting monthly surveys of the group’s 24,000 restaurants to determine whether they can pay their rent, and, unfortunately, the number of eateries that can survive has been dwindling.

   The industry group says that half of its 300,000 restaurant workers across the city remain out of work, a situation the group called “a cold reality.”

   As the restaurant industry struggles through the current and potentially greater restrictions should COVID positivity numbers continue to increase, Andrew Rigie, the NYC Hospitality Alliance’s executive director, said that restaurants need federal aid.

   “With many venues still closed, new restrictions further limiting the operating hours of those open, and cooler weather making outdoor dining less feasible, New York City’s hospitality industry simply cannot wait: The Restaurants Act and the Save Our Stages Act need to be immediately passed by the U.S. Senate and enacted by the president without delay,” Regie said in a statement.

   In addition, experts fear that a collapse of the city’s restaurant industry will add to the growing number of empty storefronts and further economic devastation.

   For instance, Kathryn Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City warned the financial institutions will fracture and an economic collapse similar to the one in 2008 is not far when small businesses cannot pay their rent, and then property owners cannot pay taxes.

   “This is not unique to New York City, the problem is the greatest here, but it’s across the whole country.”

  Patch.com reported that the pre-pandemic, 8% of the stores in Manhattan that were vacant, but a recent survey showed that that number had almost doubled in the recent past.