Thano Fatsis' beloved NYC diner is on the brink of closure - simply because it's on the wrong side of the street
- Triple Crown Diner is a local fixture in Bellerose, Queens, at the outer limits of New York City.
- Across the street, in suburban Long Island, restaurants enjoy looser restrictions on indoor dining.
- Owner Thano Fatsis takes us inside his diner's struggle for survival during the pandemic.
On a Saturday in January, I walked into the Triple Crown Diner in Queens, New York, just as I did many weekends growing up.
But this time, the booths were empty.
A string of signs reading "STOP! NO SEATING AVAILABLE" stretched across the bar. And the shelves of the display case, ordinarily packed with treats from Russian coffee cakes to peach cobbler, were bare.
Toward the back of the restaurant, whose silver-chrome facade is so shiny it magnifies the cold winter snow, I take a seat on crackly vinyl upholstery across from Triple Crown co-owner Thano Fatsis.
Wearing a zip-up hoodie and dark circles under his eyes, the 41-year-old New York native exhibits the stress that accompanies the struggles of a restaurateur in the city, where indoor dining has been banned on and off since March due to the coronavirus crisis.
Fatsis has had even more stresses than most, though, because of the arbitrary yet punishing nature of the Triple Crown's location. The beloved neighborhood eatery sits on the border of Bellerose, Queens, the middle-class New York City neighborhood where I grew up, separated only by Jericho Turnpike from Long Island, where indoor dining has been permitted at 50% capacity without pause since July.
"It's like a knife through my heart," said Fatsis, looking out the window of his shuttered 200-seat restaurant toward his rivals on the other side of the traffic light - like local mini-chain Atomic Wings - serving patrons in heated dining rooms.
Though Gov. Andrew Cuomo has mandated that indoor dining can resume at 25% capacity in New York City as of Friday, February 12, the move might be too little, too late for Fatsis and other flailing local restaurant owners.
"At 25%, you're not even covering your bills," he explained to me, as his expenses - including rent, employee wages, ingredients, and utilities - mount. When, and if, full capacity is allowed again, it could take up to five years for the diner's finances to return to the flush levels of January 2020.
Top chefs Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, David Chang, Danny Meyer, and others are delaying opening their NYC outposts at 25% capacity this weekend out of fear that authorities will change their minds and call off indoor dining again, the New York Post's Steve Cuozzo reported. They hold it's not worth the work - or the costs - to reopen and then shut down again.
And while, as of Valentine's Day, Fatsis is reopening for six days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, prospects are dim.
In December, Fatsis had to cut staff again. His team is down 75% from its pre-pandemic size of roughly 40 workers strong. Up until this weekend, takeout and delivery were Triple Crown's only sources of income. Even with that, Fatsis said he was lucky if he got 60 orders on Saturdays - a stark contrast to the hundreds of people who would pile into banquettes just a year ago.
To cut costs, Fatsis has taken on many new responsibilities. "I'll help with the cooking," he said. "I'll deliver the orders."
But after nearly 21 years in business, weathering blows from the citywide blackout in 2003 to the financial crisis of 2008, Fatsis is facing the hard reality that Triple Crown might not survive this setback.
Factoring in the limited indoor dining and a second PPP loan, Fatsis said, he has the resources to operate for about 11 more months before he would have to close for good.
"There's no light at the end of the tunnel, and that's what's scary," he said. "I've emptied all of my piggy banks. I've deferred my mortgage payments on my house."
The last year has notched tragedies beyond hits to the bottom line: Fatsis and his business partner both contracted COVID-19 early in the pandemic, and, while Triple Crown was shut down during the first stay-at-home order, a longtime server died.
Since March, more than 1,000 restaurants in New York City have shut their doors for good as a result of pandemic-led financial hardships.
Fatsis fears Triple Crown may be next - all because he's on the wrong side of the street.
A neighborhood institution for two decades
The days following the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center cemented the then-newly opened diner's role in the community.
The diner had been serving up omelettes and club sandwiches for just two months at the time, Fatsis said, with the kitchen closing at 2 a.m. But he quietly left his doors open after hours for the many locally based officers and firefighters commuting to and from Ground Zero during the recovery and cleanup.
"I would keep my kitchen open for only first responders," he said. "I never advertised it. But whoever stopped by knew." They'd come in exhausted, he continued, recalling a group of five firefighters who stopped for some coffee on their way back from Lower Manhattan. Some ash still clung to their uniforms.
The simple act of feeding first responders presaged two decades of Triple Crown serving as a gathering place for the neighborhood.
In October 2012, when Hurricane Sandy hit Queens, Triple Crown was one of the only buildings in the area that still had power. Fatsis described a chaotic yet tight-knit crew of people who camped out in the diner to charge their phones, drink coffee, and devour hot food.
"To this day, people say to me, 'You're a life-saver,'" he said.
It's not just times of need: Triple Crown has long served as the go-to spot for after-church breakfast on Sundays, sugary birthday celebrations, and late-night French fry orders following school dances.
I dug into my own memories, too. Nothing ended a June night at the local St. Gregory the Great Festival quite like a Triple Crown strawberry milkshake. Ordering it to go helps, but it isn't the same.
Hope sprung in the summertime
The discrepancy between indoor dining permissibility in New York City versus Long Island hit Triple Crown hard.
But at first, all restaurants were subject to the same shutdown: The closure of all non-essential businesses in the state on March 16 forced bars and restaurants to resort to takeout and delivery.
At the time, Fatsis came down with a fever, chills, and a cough. It was so early in the pandemic that widespread testing wasn't yet available, but his doctor told him it was likely COVID-19. Then his co-owner Andy Gounaris got sick. Fearing they would spread the virus inadvertently, they decided to pause even takeout and delivery. Though that decision resulted in more lost revenue, the duo thought the closures would be temporary; they had no inkling that indoor dining wouldn't resume again in New York City until September.
On June 22, New York City restaurants were allowed to serve customers on sidewalks, in parking lots, and in backyards. About 30 employees of his former 40 returned to work. Fatsis restructured, creating jobs for everyone who wanted one, even if it meant carrying orders out to Uber drivers. The operation brought back a sense of normalcy - however fleeting - for both him and the staff.
"I made it as fun as I possibly could," he said. "It was summertime. It was nice out. We had music in the tent."
Long Island eateries bounced back faster
Just two days after NYC allowed restaurants to serve patrons outdoors - June 24 - Long Island eateries were allowed to welcome customers inside at 50% capacity. In the scorching summer heat, it was hard for Triple Crown's tent, however rollicking, to compete with air-conditioned dining on the other side of Jericho Turnpike.
"I definitely feel lucky that we are able to allow our customers to sit, because on certain nights when we have a big game, people will come and watch," franchise owner Sayem Kahn told me, after I called to ask how indoor dining affected his bottom line through the pandemic. "I definitely couldn't imagine if I had no indoor seating. We have 2,000 square feet, so we're not as large as the Triple Crown Diner. We have seating for 50 people. If we couldn't have anyone sitting inside, 100%, I'm sure we'd be in the same position."
Other Long Island restaurants near Triple Crown have similarly been able to serve customers in comfortable, climate-controlled environments since the summer. Less than a mile away from Jericho Turnpike, an array of eateries and bars line Tulip Avenue, a thoroughfare that attracts hungry locals from both Queens and Long Island.
On a recent Monday morning, I sat, all warm and toasty, inside one of Triple Crown's rivals on the Long Island side, the Floral Park Diner. While sipping hot coffee and chowing down on eggs in the brick-sided eatery, I took in the scene. This joint has been allowed to fill 50% of its tables with laughing, chatting clientele, a stark contrast to Triple Crown.
For Fatsis, that inequity is what stings.
His 76-year-old father Billy runs Northshore Diner in Flushing, a Queens neighborhood closer to Manhattan. It's faring better because every restaurant around it is grappling with the same restrictions.
Meanwhile, Triple Crown's counterparts mere blocks away have been able to operate closer to normal for months.
In August, Italian restaurant Il Bacco in Little Neck, Queens, sued Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York Attorney General over the "random, arbitrary and unfair" situation at the Queens-Long Island border.
"If a restaurant patron travels five hundred feet east or one city block east from [Il Bacco], patrons are in Nassau County and can enjoy indoor dining in an air conditioned room," the court papers said, as reported in the New York Post. "According to Governor [Andrew] Cuomo, it is dangerous to eat at [Il Bacco] in Little Neck, Queens, but it is safe to dine indoors a few hundred feet east."
The long road to recovery
On September 30, New York City resumed indoor dining at 25% capacity.
Because the tent rental was pricey, the PPP loan was running out, and the weather would soon turn cold, Fatsis dismantled his outdoor setup. He moved his focus inside, even though it meant serving fewer meals and cutting staff from 30 to 18.
The city required every restaurateur to put up signs telling people to social distance and wear masks. Fatsis also had to buy and use temperature-check guns as well as install an air filtration system (which ultimately came with a $5,000 price tag).
In addition, the city mandated that every customer write their name and phone number on a sign-in sheet to eat in the diner. That was a turn-off for some Triple Crown regulars, Fatsis said.
Fatsis also said he worried that filling just 25% of seats wouldn't bring in enough revenue to balance out his expenses.
But if Triple Crown could serve patrons through the end of 2020, he reasoned, it would just be a matter of time before the city allowed 50% capacity, and then, eventually, 100%.
His hopes came crashing down as COVID-19 cases spiked in the late fall and winter.
The risk of permanent closure
The moment Fatsis realized the diner might not make it came in November. The governor had said indoor dining would be expanded to 50% capacity that month. But it didn't happen.
When Fatsis heard that, "I said to myself, 'We're in trouble.'"
His hopes were further dashed in December, when upticks in the coronavirus positivity rate led the city to suspend indoor dining yet again.
Even though Triple Crown reopened indoors the weekend of February 12, Fatsis said filling the restaurant's booths with a only quarter of its typical 200 guests won't dig the diner out of the hole it's in. While he expects to get a second PPP loan for roughly the same amount as the first, he only has enough funds to keep operating the restaurant at a loss for about 11 more months.
I asked my childhood neighbors what it would mean to lose Triple Crown.
It would be devastating, said Kimberley Bliss, a 32-year-old middle school teacher who grew up in Bellerose.
"We spent every single celebration there, every birthday we could think of there," said the Queens native, who even invited Fatsis and Gounaris to her wedding.
What Fatsis really needs, he told me, is for New York City to allow 50% capacity as soon as possible.
At that rate, it would take him 10 years to get back to pre-pandemic business levels, which he admitted is daunting, but at least doable.
Adding to his stress, Fatsis said, is the ever-growing tally of New York City's permanent restaurant closures.
He's applied to the Barstool Fund, the brainchild of digital sports and media millionaire David Portnoy that supports small businesses affected by the pandemic. So far, the fund has raised over $35 million for entrepreneurs like him. But still hasn't heard back.
Locals have also created a GoFundMe page for the diner, which has raised around $3,000 of its $225,000 goal to pay its rent, workers, operating expenses, and debts. A yet-to-be-determined percentage of proceeds will go to the family of the server who passed away.
"You know what I tell myself every single day?" he said. "It's not your fault. This is not your fault. It's not because you don't know what you're doing, it's not because you made poor decisions as a businessman. You have no control over what is going on."