by Michelle Boudin

While many Charlotteans are racing to the grocery store for the obligatory bread and milk, restaurants across our area are trying to figure out how best to navigate an ill-timed, potentially historic winter storm.

“It stinks!” Ashley Boyd, the chef and managing partner at 300 East, isn’t mincing words when it comes to this weekend’s snow storm and the impacts on the local restaurant industry. “It’s sort of a cascade of effects that could potentially happen, and I think it’s that way for most of us in the business. There’s the potential for closure, possible power outages, and recovering from all the lost product if there’s a power outage. It’s not fun!”

Stefan Huebner, co-owner and mixologist at Dot Dot Dot, says the fact that the storm is hitting on a weekend makes the financial impacts much worse and could amount to more than $10,000 in losses for the Park Road cocktail bar.

“We can’t control mother nature but for a business like Dot, it’s much better to happen on a Monday than a Saturday,” he says. “It could be a total washout with a 100 percent loss of revenue for Saturday.”

Huebner says they’re lucky in the sense that a potential lengthy power outage won’t hit them as hard as it will others.

“At Dot we’re fortunate we’re on the same grid as the police station, so our power goes out a lot but it comes back very fast. We also don’t have a lot of perishables because it’s mostly liquor. For other people, not only are you losing sales multiple days, but you’re also losing perishable inventory. For a steakhouse or seafood restaurant could be devastating.”

Boyd says that’s definitely a concern at 300 East. She and her team are trying to figure out the best way to handle because the storm and its potential impacts are so unpredictable. 

“We are doing mental gymnastics about everything right now and part of that means figuring out the best way to adjust our orders,” she says. “The same way we’re mentally preparing, I think our customers get in a mindset that they’re staying home so we’re already getting cancelled reservations. They just don’t want to come out. Whether it’s actually terrible or not, it’s a hunker-down mentality for a lot of people so I already know our business is going to be impacted and if we want to minimize that, it means adjusting orders for the weekend and potentially beyond.”

Like many business owners across Charlotte, they’re also trying to figure out whether to close, and if so, when. Dot Dot Dot will likely make the call Saturday morning. At 300 East, Boyd says, “We are coming up with contingency plans and making sure that we know which staff are able to safely get to work. If it’s a complete disaster then we would close.”

Lots of places are counting on takeout business, with some even offering special deals this weekend. The FS Food group, home to Calle Sol, YAFO Kitchen, Mama Ricottas, and Midwood Smokehouse, has special offerings at several of their restaurants for people preparing to stock up ahead of the storm. Mama Ricotta’s will send you home with cold lasagna that just needs to be reheated; Calle Sol has a special deal on their Familia meal that feeds four people for $35; and YAFO will offer a Lebanese Chicken Bake. 

“If our guests can’t come to us, we at least want to offer them a way to get dinner on the table with minimal stress and the homestyle cooking people have come to expect from us,” says FS Food Group’s Marketing Director Rémy Thurston.

Huebner expects that’s what most people will be doing — staying home, as restaurants hope to weather the storm.