Restaurants, bars aim to score ‘Super’ sales Sunday without being COVID-19 superspreaders

Dayton area restaurants and bars are working to keep customers and staff safe Sunday during an event that sees many of them score more business than any other day of the year.

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Breanna Dennis, the bartender at Roosters on Springboro Pike pours a beer for a customer, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. The restaurant is working to keep customers and staff safe on Super Bowl Sunday. One of their busiest days of the year. MARSHALL GORBYSTAFF

Roosters, which has six locations in the Dayton area, finds the Super Bowl helps create its busiest Sunday of the year by far and “definitely our busiest carryout day of the year,” according to Danny Nader, area manager for Roosters’ Dayton market.

A shift to carryout business continues to occur during the COVID-19 pandemic, and all Roosters locations are responding accordingly to minimize risk, Nader said.

“We’re going to be taking tables out of the dining rooms to allow us to not only bring the people in, but bring them in safely and spread out as we (to allow us to) process the orders in a more manageable fashion,” he said. “The big thing for us is getting the guests out safely.”

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To spread out business throughout Sunday and reduce the impact of the main dinner rush, Roosters will be offering an early bird special of 20 percent off for those who come in between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., Nader said.

For those who do opt to dine in at area Roosters, COVID-19 restrictions will remain in place, he said. That includes barriers between tables, reduced seating for social distancing and designated sanitizers cleaning surfaces between guests.

Archer’s Tavern locations in Centerville and Kettering and Stonehouse Tavern in Waynesville typically do more business in carryout than in-house dining for Super Bowl Sunday. This year, they are seeing an uptick in advance carryout orders, according to Dan Apolito, co-owner of all three restaurants.

Carryout orders at Archer’s Tavern are up approximately 50 percent compared to a typical day and are expected to increase another 50 percent this Sunday. The restaurant will rely on its contactless, curbside carryout and its all-new system for online ordering, Apolito said.

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“People can order online, pay online and then we bring out it out to your car without you ever having to come into the restaurant,” he said. “It’ll be a huge carryout day for us. We’re already ordering more wings from our provider to make sure we have enough wings and pizza and some of the Super Bowl staples that people tend to order.”

Super Bowl LV, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m., is expected to last between three-and-a-half to four hours, so it “definitely helps” that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine extended the curfew from 10 to 11 p.m. last week, Apolito said.

“We’re excited that we’re going to be able to take care of our guests and show the Super Bowl,” he said. “Unfortunately, we missed out on all of the holidays, we missed out on all of the bowl games, we missed out on all the NFL playoffs because people wouldn’t come in knowing they had to be home by 10 o’clock. This was really the last hurrah for what’s typically our busiest season.”

Having to remove a portion of bar seating due to social distancing requirements will cut back on the amount of people actually paying attention to the game because, as Apolito puts it, “you don’t go to a restaurant to sit in a booth and watch the game, you go into to the bar area.”

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Average spending per person on Super Bowl related fare, including food and beverage, decorations and other items, is expected to drop from $88.65 per person to $74.55, according to the National Retail Federation’s Annual 2021 Super Bowl Spending Survey. Conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, the survey typically has shown an expected increase from year to year since its inception in 2007. Total expected spending nationwide is expected to drop from $17.2 billion in 2010 to $13,9 billion, according to the survey.

Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County is recommending people do not host or go to Super Bowl parties, according to Dan Suffoletto, public information supervisor.

“If you want to watch the game, watch it at home with the people who live in that household,” Suffoletto said.

Those looking to connect with friends should do so via Zoom, Facetime or other means, but not invite others to one’s home, he said.

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Those who do choose to take in the Super Bowl while dining or drinking at area restaurants or bars have the potential of making Sunday a superspreader event, Suffoletto said.

”Any time people get together closely, particularly in a social situation for long period of time, there’s a chance for the spreading of COVID,” he said. “Typically, Super Bowl parties have eating and drinking associated with it, during which time it’s impossible to keep your mask on while you’re eating and drinking, so that would make it even more risky for people being together.

“The safest and best thing to do is get carryout from a restaurant, that way you’re not exposing yourself to others for an extended period of time.”