Amar Santana and Ahmed Labbate, the OCBJ 2020 Restaurateurs of the Year for Vaca, Broadway by Amar Santana and The Hall Global Eatery, have been adding to their takeout menus at Broadway and Vaca, and although The Hall at South Coast Plaza is closed, they’ve added some Hall cuisine to the Vaca menu.
The reduced menu and hours have naturally resulted in reduced income, although an angel investor has been paying the employees at Vaca, and Santana and Labbate have been covering employee health insurance. Labbate said, “I don’t know how we’re doing it. We’re waiting for a PPP loan. We applied at the end of March, the bank said we’re in the queue so we should have funds in a week or two.”
Labbate is as anxious as any restaurant owner to reopen his restaurants, but like others he needs guidelines once the time comes.
“We don’t know what will happen. Let’s say we can [accommodate] 50 people. Does that include employees? Do we take the temperature of people before they come into the restaurant? Will we allow walk-ins? Will we have to spread tables out? There are a lot of unanswered questions, but we are starting to have these scenarios in our heads.”
Labbate said there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, “but I don’t know what that light looks like. I hope things get back to normal, but it will take a while. The consumer’s pattern of consumption has changed.”
