After pandemic struggles, Columbus restaurants are putting lunch service back on the menu
There's something new and trendy being served these days at Columbus restaurants.
It's called lunch.
"People were asking us for a few years, 'When are you going to reopen for lunch?'," said Scott Heimlich, the owner of Barcelona in German Village, where lunch service returned in June 2021, was halted six months later and finally started back up again May 1.
Midday meals that fell victim to pandemic shutdowns, staffing shortages and the shift to remote work are slowly making a comeback in central Ohio. More restaurants are opening for the full days of pre-COVID times, and more people in turn are doing lunch once again.
"It just did not hit the numbers we needed to make it work," he said of the short-lived lunch hours three years ago. Of Barcelona's experience this time around, he said, "We've been very pleased."
Photos: Hank’s Low Country Seafood & Raw Bar expands from South Carolina to downtown Columbus
What's different now? Heimlich said life seems more normal these days for everyone.
He's not the only person in the restaurant business who thinks so.
More lunch options Downtown Columbus
Hank's Low Country Seafood & Raw Bar, which opened Downtown in late April, added lunch service to its menu last week. Tim Morton, executive chef for parent company Makeready, said the plan all along was to get dinner running smoothly before introducing lunch hours six to eight weeks later. It took eight weeks and two days.
"Restaurants are competitive. It's a competitive industry and a competitive market," Morton said. "We didn't see a lot of upscale lunch options Downtown."
Hank's answer: a "Quick Catch" lunch with a $35 price tag and a 45-minute promise. Its three courses include choices among fried calamari, she-crab soup or the house salad; shrimp and grits, fried chicken or an open-faced crab melt; and dessert. Lunch menu options also include oysters, a seafood tower and raw bar selections, seared scallops and other entrees, and sandwiches such as a fried green-tomato BLT.
The pandemic took its toll Columbus restaurants
According to the National Restaurant Association, the decline in lunch traffic has been one of the more lingering effects of a tumultuous five years for the industry. Finding and keeping employees remains the top concern among restaurant operators, according to the association's latest annual survey.
WFH Research, which tracks work-from-home numbers nationally, says the percentage of Americans' on-the-job time spent remotely is four times what it was before 2020 COVID shutdowns.
As a result, almost $17 billion in U.S. restaurant income has shifted from lunchtime to breakfast and post-dinner hours between 2019 and last year.
"The pandemic took its toll on a lot of things," Morton said. "Lunch was one of those things."
Slim midday margins
John Barker, president and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant & Hospitality Alliance, said lunch has always been the least profitable part of the day for restaurants. Breakfast menus — especially coffee — offer better margins. Dinner's more elaborate meals, accompanied by wine or cocktails, appetizers and dessert, result in bigger checks.
Lunch, for most a quick meal to begin with, has become even less of a thought for remote workers, he said.
"When people work at home, it's a little less traditional. You don't have to eat lunch at lunchtime," Barker said. "All these trends are coming together."
Some signs of a turnaround
But there are signs of a turnaround for the midday meal.
Worries over staffing have declined since 2023, the National Restaurant Association reported earlier this year. And work-from-home researchers reported in May that the percentage of work hours performed remotely was at its lowest level since March 2020.
Chouette, a French restaurant and wine bar set to open in August at Gay and High streets Downtown, plans to add lunch service quickly. Restaurants outside of Downtown, such as PJ Hot Pot on the Northwest Side and Asuka Ramen in Dublin, opened in recent months with lunch and dinner hours from the start.
A look inside PJ Hot Pot: PJ Hot Pot offers tips for cooking and enjoying a meal prepared by patrons tableside
Of the 10 Downtown restaurants with the highest customer ratings on Yelp, five are open for lunch. Only one, Market 65, is open for lunch only; the others include Speck Italian Eatery, a fine-dining restaurant where the midday menu includes signature pasta dishes and Italian-style sandwiches.
Lunch is served... again
At Barcelona on a recent Friday afternoon, there was a steady demand for tables on the patio, but it was easy still to get one. The menu includes lunch-sized portions of two popular paellas — one vegetarian and the other with chicken, chorizo, shrimp and mussels — as well as tapas, gazpacho and a Spanished-up Caesar salad that includes Manchego cheese, white anchovies and crushed Marcona almonds in place of croutons.
Lunch versions of the restaurant's seared scallops and Manchego-stuffed chicken entrees are available, as are sandwiches.
"We knew we needed things similar to dinner, but you don't want to copy dinner," Heimlich said.
In Clintonville, Gallo's on High opened in January 2021 for dinner and weekend brunch only. Lunch service began in December 2023. John Carlson, operations manager for Gallo's Food Group, said the area around the North High Street restaurant has plenty of fast takeaway lunch options but lacked a sit-down spot.
While Gallo's dinner menu in Clintonville offers about 30 options, from pizzas to a New York strip with béarnaise butter, the lunch menu is a pared-down lineup of sandwiches and salads that are all $16 or less.
"To be honest, we weren't sure how much traction lunch was going to get," Carlson said. "But it seems like every week, our lunch business is increasing. People either walk by or drive by and see guests sitting on the patio and go, 'Oh, I didn't know they were open for lunch.'"
Instagram: @dispatchdining
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Lunch service returns at more Columbus restaurants
