(Bloomberg) -- (Editor's note: This is the fifth in our “Stories of Summer.” For more, see this link on the Bloomberg terminal, visit @QuickTake on Twitter or see the YouTube playlist.)
New York City icon Katz's Delicatessen, the 132-year-old home of heaping pastrami sandwiches, is accustomed to serving thousands of customers per day. But social distancing measures have drastically changed how the restaurant does business.
A drop in tourism — New York City hotel occupancy plunged to as low as 15% in late March — combined with an outflow of residents, has led to a major loss in business for Katz's. The deli now brings in about 100 customers a day, compared with as many as 4,000 prior to the pandemic.
That said, Katz's has managed to keep all 200 of its employees on the payroll, thanks in part to its delivery business which ships delicacies like pastrami, latkes, soups and mustard across the country (federal records show the restaurant has also received funding through the government's Paycheck Protection Program). It has also set up outdoor dining for the first time in its history, and created a structured line within the restaurant to avoid crowding around the cash registers. In this video, Katz's owner Jake Dell discusses the deli's history and its resilience through crises, big and small.
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