In the past several weeks, more cities began slowly re-opening, which has also brought the, hopefully, careful re-opening of more food services businesses. Even if socially distanced, masked and everything else, there are moments of delight knowing you can eat outside at a restaurant during the summer months. I hope everyone continues to take precaution and acts responsibly so we don’t see large resurgences of COVID cases that would force us to take steps backward instead of forward. Unfortunately, there’s been news of that in many states, so I’ll hold my breath for now.

In prior posts, I’ve spoken a bit about the resilience and creativity of existing restaurants during these difficult times. What I haven’t yet mentioned is the bold and brave spirit of restaurateurs that have actually OPENED new restaurants amidst the pandemic. With so many businesses suffering, it takes a special team of optimists to test something new in this environment.

I’ve asked myself many times if I would have enough confidence to open a new business in a highly affected industry during a downturn, and I constantly find myself waffling. I think these business owners clearly have much for conviction and guts than I do. Many say a downturn is a great time to innovate. Think of the last financial crisis — we got Uber, Airbnb, Square, Stripe, and more. Restaurants are very different businesses. …but you get the point 🙂

Eater NY released a running list of restaurants that have opened during the pandemic, and it’s much longer than I would’ve anticipated. These restaurants deserve to be highlighted, I hope new patrons find them and I wish them the best of luck and success in the coming months.

I would love nothing more than to see this list grow, so please reach out if you have others to add from across the country, or the world!