Dear patrons,
It has been quite a whirlwind of developments in just the past two days. As noted in our initial communication, the rapidly developing situation with Covid-19 was likely to force changes to our plans. Around 10:00pm last night it broke that Mayor de Blasio will order the closure of many establishments including restaurants and bars except to offer takeout or delivery. The order will go into effect Tuesday morning at 9:00 am. (The governor just announced the shutdown is accelerated to 8:00 pm tonight).
To be honest, we were seriously considering a suspension of operations before this news broke last night. Here at Villa Mosconi, we have never had a huge volume of delivery or takeout. Taking this factor into account, along with the fact that the skeleton crew we would need to even attempt operating in that manner are largely dependent upon public transportation, we are making the difficult decision to suspend operations beginning tomorrow. We are spending today preparing for shutdown. We will not be serving customers today. The safety of our workforce is of the utmost importance to us and we want to mitigate their risk of exposure or transmission to any of their family members who may be at higher risk of complications due to this virus.
We cannot currently say how long this suspension will last. We do know that schools will be closed until April 20, at the earliest, and Broadway shows have been suspended until April 12, at the earliest. Based on these measures, we do not anticipate attempting to reopen before Easter. Because of this, we are officially canceling plans to be open for Easter Sunday. We will be reaching out to customers today who have reservations for Easter Sunday to inform them individually. We will also contact as many large parties as possible who had dates set between now and then.
Rest assured that we will emerge from this crisis whenever it does subside. We will take care of our employees financially in the interim to the fullest extent we can. Our little family business is set up to be extremely resilient and survive catastrophic situations better than many other small businesses. However, we are part of a larger community of small business owners and workers in NYC. They are part of the fabric that makes this city what it is. It is for them that we now ask you to move to action if you are able.
This shutdown will be an economic burden for millions of small business operators and their employees. We encourage you all to reach out to elected officials at ALL levels of government to enact measures to ease these tremendous burdens. If action is not taken the effects could be catastrophic for countless people. These measures range from things like paid sick leave, a moratorium on mortgage payments, rent forgiveness for business with little to no revenue coming in, suspension of utility cutoff for nonpayment, and multiple others. We may not individually be “too big to fail” but collectively a loss of so many small businesses in our country, and especially NYC, would further exacerbate the serious economic ramifications we are all about to endure.
We hope you all take proper measures to protect yourselves and your loved ones over the coming weeks. We truly regret that we have to take these measures but it is vitally necessary to attempt to slow the impact of the Covid-19 virus. Over the weekend, the situation in Italy deteriorated exponentially. Again, we have multiple close contacts there and have received news and stories that are extremely worrisome. In an effort to avoid that fate we understand why these measures are being put into place by officials and are resigned to the fact that they are necessary for the public health.
We thank you again for your continued patronage. We look forward to serving you all again when it is deemed safe to do so. We will miss seeing you all over the next few weeks. Again, please stay connected to us through our social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) for any updates. You can also consult our website and sign up for our newsletter if you are not currently receiving it. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Sincerely,
The Villa Mosconi family and staff