This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Jason, New York City is going to start third phase of the reopening that happens July six. So that means indoor dining capacity is limited to maximum occupancy and all tables must be at least six ft apart. So lots of rules and regulations, but it's slowly happening. We've talked a lot about the hospitality space and dining space.
Back with Us is not back with us? With us is A respected voice in the restaurant world is Robert Irvine. He's cheff and host of Restaurant Impossible, back for a new season in fact, on the phone joining us from Akron, Ohio. Nice to have you here with us. How are you? How's your world? Caroline? Doing great? Thank you on mind doing what I do best? Restaurants? Well, tell well, tell us about that. Tell us what are you reopening and
how's that going? Well? We're on a trip. I can tell you on the project to open six plus restaurants in the last four weeks or three weeks, I should say, um. But it's really interesting because you talk about the space and talk about New York City opening dining in I've been in Mississippi this week where there's a hundred options depending on what where you where you are in that state. Um, and I gotta tell you it's it's interesting trying to get to consumer confidence back that is that is the
biggest problem we we have. You know, COVID nineteen here in March, eleven million workers or food and beverage and hospitality workers go out of work. Hundred eighty four plus countries shut down, and people are scared. People are fearful of restaurants. So Robert, how do you make them feel better? Like, like, what's the what's the way? I mean, obviously people want to be safe and they don't want to get sick.
But is there something you can do or say? What are what's the thing that you can tell people to make them feel better? Yeah, Well, first of all, we have we have something called transparency. We have to be transpiratory what we're doing in the restaurants to be able to make sure that those are employees are safe and the consumers safe, you know, accountability and health and safety. We have a duty of care and responsibility to both
of those employees and the customers. I mean, I'd come up with an amazing group of people, not just myself, with a project and an app called Virus Safe pro taking protocols that we would have in those respective restaurants, hotels, motels, and bars and putting into an app very simple to use, um, but it really is how do we how do we let people know that we're doing the jobs that we'll
say we're doing. And everybody's been to an airport, everybody's doing to a bar, and you can see those checklists on the door said, oh we've done this, We've cleaned, we cleaned the restroom, We've done this, we've done that. Well, you know if if if you don't do it, what happens? People get sick on the virus state pro Literally, I can g tag you. So if you're smoking a cigarette outside and you're saying you're cleaning the bridge rator, I can say, well, you haven't clean your rebridge rator. Why
haven't you done it? You know again, it's accountability. Well, you know, Robert, I was just thinking listening to you, it's no different from kind of the restaurant ratings that we see in New York City. ABC. Combine that with the thinking of like an uber and lift where there's you know, an app where if you go to a restaurant and you right away or or or I'm thinking even some of the you know the food apps, you
know you rate it right away about what your experience was. Um, there's a way of all of us kind of contributing to this to make sure it's safe for everyone. Yeah, and that's what exactly what virus they pro is. It's a mobile help checklist ver verification software. That's what it does.
It tells me that I've cleaned something, and it tells you that it's been done like those just like those ratings that you you know, once there is a verification check on the outside of your restaurant the wind though. It's really simple. Folks can take the phone check or take a photograph and very trying the QR code and it tells me exactly what's happened in that restaurant at
that day, so I feel safe. All the protocols, the gloves of the mass of social distances, the refrigerator that was checked to make sure that it was in temperature, that this one was doing, the toilet this one was doing, say, etcetera, etcetera. At the end of the day, we're going to make sure that the employees are following and performing all of
those mandated measures and protocols that we set in place. Otherwise, nobody's going to those restaurants unless we get that consumer confidence back and we show that we're doing the right things. But they're not coming back. We're not making money, and especially especially as now we're you're talking about fifty New York City where I am here, it's only twenty five percent, So we've got to make up all that money for the other semi fiber and you'll take fift. So where's
the revenue coming from? So I've gotta look at We've got to look at how the hours extended we are. We've got a ton of the revenue sources coming in. Is it carry out? Is it liqutor, is it you know all those things. And if people are not visiting, we're going out of business. And that's my biggest concern. Thirty of mom and pop businesses will not be able to make it through this coronavirus pandemic. You think of this of the smaller sort of single owned restaurants, yes,
totally wow. So what is the restaurant feel like you know all if all the safety protocols are followed, Robert, how different does it feel if I'm walking in to have dinner. Well, it gives you. If you if you check on the QUOD number one and you know that these protocols have been followed, you're still going to be met by somebody that's wearing a mask, which is very unusual for us. We're not used to that, or or a visor in some cases, and I've seen both. Um,
it's very unnerving. But once you get used to sitting down in the server talking to you, you have to have a mask on this. This the server bring is the clean food. Somebody else comes along and removes the dirty plates. Um, a completely different person by the way. Um, and these are these are that's a new norm. I don't think it's going to change until we have a vaccine, and even then, I still believe these protocols will be
in place. And those that don't follow these protocols, we've seen what's been happening in those states that have not been wearing masks and not been doing these things. There's a there's a reassurgence of the pandemic. Coronavirus is coming back, and I've already seen in certain places in Tampa. There's some places or St. Pete speech, I'm sorry that are
closed because of that. So you know, we really have a and I say this world because we use it in the military or the sentence and duty of care, our responsibility to make sure that we make you feel safe. I do feel like we're living in an era where there's a lot of responsibility upon all of us to change a lot in our world. M Robert, thank you so much, Robert round chef and a host of Restaurant Impossible joining us on the phone from seventeen season. I know,
I know. Yeah, it's pretty much longevity in this media world. Yeah, that stuck with me and that mom pop restaurants will not make it through k Crater our restaurant critic uh an expert. She's been talking to us about how hard hit that industry is going to be