OC restaurateur, philanthropist and fashionista Elizabeth An spared no expense ensuring branding of her restaurants wasn’t lost in translation when converting to outdoor dining.
The CEO of House of An—a multi-restaurant operator whose concepts include AnQi at South Coast Plaza—went beyond implementing COVID-19 safety and sanitation measures. She went for full-on immersive experience, and it’s coaxing customers back.
“It’s definitely helping,” she said. “We have not recovered yet from the loss and I hope in time it will, but having outdoor dining support along with to-go has helped. Both are important because outdoor alone will not be sufficient.”
An, who splits her time between residences in Corona del Mar and Beverly Hills, has long been active in OC’s philanthropic scene, underwriting dinners and co-chairing galas in support of nonprofits such as the Bowers Museum, Pacific Symphony, CASA and Second Harvest Food Bank of OC.
She recently reopened the doors to Anqi’s An the Garden, a 15-table outdoor dining space complete with plant walls, decorative hedges, curtain dividers and a bundle of safety measures called An Extra Care.
The moves are in response to the state’s continued order shuttering the indoor operations of restaurants and malls, among other businesses.
An the Garden’s safety procedures call for masked and gloved employees. Guests walk through a full-length machine to have their temperatures taken. Flatware is sealed airtight and brought to guests once they’re seated, and UV blue light wands are used to kill germs. Each table has access to a service buzzer giving diners control of how much interaction they have with staffers.
Positive Marks
An the Garden’s been open less than a month but An said feedback has so far been positive with a recent day actually seeing guests queuing up in line, waiting for opening.
“Right now our goal with House of An is to make the dining experience as safe as possible,” the CEO said.
An, whose mother was diagnosed with cancer last year, said the family took extra precautions when her mother was visiting her home to ensure the environment was sanitary.
Those practices then became the guiding principle for how An the Garden and its takeout program’s operational procedures were designed.
“If it’s safe for mom to be there, then that’s kind of the criteria we look for,” An said. “I joke and I say AnQi is an experience somewhere between a Michelin-rated restaurant and a surgery room.”
The Receipts
How to translate a fine dining experience into the outdoors didn’t come cheap.
The high-tech temperature measure for guests cost $4,000. The hedges and other plants were $30,000. Custom acrylic dividers came at $900 each. The bill for gloves alone, since March, has been about $30,000 with staffers changing every 15 minutes.
An said things are working now, but expressed concern about the fall once temperatures drop. Restaurants are not allowed to use thick, insulated material to tent outdoor seating, so An said it would likely require the expense of heaters.
The restaurateur suggested a new grading system, akin to the existing FDA-based letter-grade system for restaurant operators. The rating would grade restaurants based on their COVID-19 enhancements and those with high marks should be allowed to remain open regardless of whether there’s another shelter-in-place order, she offered.
“There are restaurants out there trying their best to do it right. I’d love our government officials to know that they should not blanket close all the restaurants, and there should be some sort of measurement and grading system—a COVID care grading system so that businesses can stay open and help our economy.”
Next Steps
Pre-COVID An said she was considering an expansion of AnQi. She’s not so sure about those plans anymore.
“I myself have a lot of concern,” she said. “The sad reality may be it’s going to be three years before restaurants can really come back, and restaurants like my volume and my kind of rent where we’re paying $60,000 a pop on average, it’s a lot of money.”
In fact, AnQi alone pays about $500,000 in annual rent to Bloomingdale’s for its space at South Coast Plaza.
“How can you do that on a few patio tables and it becomes seasonal [business]?” she said. “So I’ve canceled some of my plans.”
