Mike Davis, owner of West Columbia fine dining restaurant, Terra, will only open his restaurant on a Sunday or Monday under two conditions — if it's New Year's Eve or Valentine's Day.Â
Davis is one of a handful of Columbia-area restaurateurs who choose to close their restaurants on either Sunday or Monday. In Davis' case, both.Â
It's an obvious solution to multiple problems, industry experts and longtime restaurant owners told Free Times. Mitigating staffing shortages and worker burnout while avoiding costs of operating during traditionally slow days are two reasons why it might be harder to find somewhere to eat on a Sunday or Monday.Â
"Normally Sundays and Mondays are the slowest days of the week in restaurants, very generally speaking," said George Hendry, who leads the University of South Carolina's hospitality students at the McCutchen House.Â
From September 2022 to this September, demand for dining out on Monday in South Carolina dropped 13.6%, according to data from Open Table, an online restaurant reservation company.Â
The cost of being open
When Eddie Wales opened Motor Supply Company Bistro, an upscale staple in the Vista, in 1989, he offered Sunday brunch.Â
The morning to mid-afternoon meal came at a cost — operating on a Sunday required a special liquor license. Over the years, that license has gotten more and more expensive, Wales said.Â
"If you're going to be open for Sunday brunch, why not also be open for Sunday dinner," Wales questioned.Â
That question led Wales to introduce dinner on Sundays, a decision which he said has paid off. Sundays are one of the eatery's busiest days, Wales said.Â
Restaurants and bars across the country have a long and complicated history with alcohol and beverage licensing laws, according to Hendry. The residual effects of blue laws, which in some areas prohibited the sale of alcohol on Sundays, combined with the Bible Belt's conservative influence, meant that Sundays in particular were — and still are — a slower day.Â
"Sunday is a day of rest for most people. You do sometimes get the church crowd (on Sundays), but I think on Monday people are just getting back to the week, coming off the weekend," Sunshine Cobb, who owns Kao Thai on Main Street, said. Her restaurant is closed on Sunday, but open on Monday for lunch and dinner.Â
Other restaurant owners, like Folami Geter who owns A Peace of Soul Vegan Kitchen, who were once open on Monday decided to shift hours around following the COVID-19 pandemic. Geter noticed a shift in demand as less and less people were eating out for lunch. Her vegan eatery introduced breakfast service and extended hours for lunch and dinner to compensate for being closed from Sunday to Tuesday.Â
"We shortened the hours because most of our downtown customers were still working from home," Geter explained. "As the city began to get back to normal, we extended the hours again but noticed that traffic decreased early in the week."
Having a weekend and a life
Aside from the cultural and historical reasons why the two days tend to be slower for dining out, a lot of local restaurant owners said having a day off is necessary for both their own well-being and the well-being of their staff.Â
When Terra's Davis opened his West Columbia eatery in 2006, he knew he'd want to prioritize making sure that he and his employees had time to enjoy weekends and time with family. For nearly two decades, the restaurant has operated dinner service five nights a week.Â
"How can we be open five days a week?" Davis thought when he first opened Terra. "Those are probably the two best days to be closed so that we can have consecutive days off to feel like you have a whole weekend and a life."
It's also meant that Davis can focus on having a core staff for all five days, as opposed to worrying about scheduling people for different times or overworking his employees.Â
Despite the trend, which Davis said he sees in cities across the country, a handful of bars and restaurants choose to be open on Monday nights in an effort to bring in people looking to dine out on a day when most places are closed. It's also a way to welcome in service industry workers who only get Mondays off.Â
"There's a lot of places that are open those days to capitalize on everybody else being closed on those days, and I think that's a trend I've seen in the last five or ten years," Davis said.Â
