Author: Matt Ingersoll

A look back at the local food scene in 2021, plus trends and predictions for 2022

Local restaurateurs continued to feel the lingering effects of the pandemic throughout what was a very up-and-down year for the hospitality industry in 2021.

“This year certainly wasn’t quite as bad as 2020, but I think it was challenging in somewhat different ways,” said Mike Somers, president of the New Hampshire Lodging & Restaurant Association. “At the start of the year, consumer confidence was at an all-time low, and businesses were really struggling to keep their numbers up. … Over the course of the summer months, it was extremely busy. Then obviously it tapered off very quickly once we got past Columbus Day, or thereabouts. … Clearly, we’re going to be having these ups and downs as we go forward.”

New Hampshire-specific results from an operator survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association in mid-September showed that 44 percent of local business owners believe it will take at least another year before the industry normalizes. Profitability is down and food costs are up, with 93 percent of those surveyed saying they’re paying more than ever for product and 85 percent reporting their labor costs have increased. The lack of adequate staffing also remains a major problem — 91 percent of business owners reported being understaffed.

“Back in the spring, we really thought we’d be in a whole different place by now. That hasn’t come to pass,” Somers said. “It really remains to be seen what the next three, four, five months looks like, and I think we’re going to start to see business owners make some key decisions.”

With 2022 on our doorstep and amid concerns about the omicron Covid-19 variant, here’s a look back on how the previous year unfolded and the current obstacles the industry is facing.

Highs and lows

New Hampshire began the year still under a statewide mask mandate for all indoor and outdoor public spaces, including restaurants. That emergency order would expire in mid-April following a sharp decline in Covid-19 cases, thanks to the rollout of vaccines throughout the early spring.

By early May, individual guidelines and restrictions at restaurants, in place since the start of the pandemic, transitioned into what Gov. Chris Sununu called “universal best practices,” consolidating guidelines for all business sectors across the Granite State. The state of emergency came to an end on June 11 as cases continued to drop.

“When you talk about 2021, I mean, there were just amazing highs and lows throughout the year,” said Tom Boucher, CEO of Great New Hampshire Restaurants, the Bedford-based group that includes each T-Bones, Cactus Jack’s and Copper Door location in the Granite State. “Most of our stores were up through the summer, over 2019 sales. … As soon as the fall hit, though, we did see revenues drop a little bit. Not a lot, but it was noticeable.”

As was the case in 2020, rented tents were set up in the parking lot of each restaurant to accommodate more outdoor dining opportunities. For a brief period from about mid-July to mid-September each location was also closed on Mondays as a way to give its staff a break.

Takeout is still not available from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday or Saturday evenings, a move that has been in place since late March to allow each eatery to prioritize in-house dining. But Boucher said that there have been talks to end this temporary suspension at T-Bones and Cactus Jack’s.

Firefly American Bistro & Bar has similarly continued to experience a greater interest in outdoor dining, according to manager Rachael Jones. In addition to putting up tents, the restaurant now keeps its outdoor patio open year-round with propane heaters in the winter months.

“We’ve had the patio maybe eight years or so, but it was always something that was strictly seasonal,” Jones said. “There just wasn’t a call for it once it got cold, but now people are happy to bundle up and have a cocktail outside. It’s just become something that we do.”

At KC’s Rib Shack, owner and co-founder Kevin Cornish made several operational changes, the most significant of them being that he’s now permanently closed for lunch on weekdays. As of about a month ago, he’s also now open an hour later each evening.

“For 20 years I kind of considered whether or not lunch was worth it for us,” he said. “We would do a good lunch, no question about that. But I think closing for lunch has helped us immensely in a lot of different areas as far as keeping the quality of our food up.”

Cornish introduced KC’s Boneyard late in the spring, a new private function and event room housed in the former Souper Melt building directly in front of the Rib Shack.

In mid-March, Tim Baines of Mint Bistro and Bob Scribner of The Wild Rover Pub joined forces to open Elm House of Pizza, a neighborhood pizzeria in the former Theo’s space on Elm Street. It was also a big year for LaBelle Winery, which introduced a new restaurant concept, a retail market, performances and event spaces and a nine-hole golf course across a 45-acre property in Derry. Each of those properties opened in phases over the course of the spring and summer.

The struggle to staff

As restaurants have continued to recover, finding and retaining qualified employees to meet the growing demand became a defining issue in 2021, and it will carry over into 2022 for many.

The Flight Center opened a second location in Manchester in late June and has only recently become able to operate for lunch during the week. Its sister restaurant, the 1750 Taphouse in Bedford, as well as The Flight Center’s downtown Nashua spot, have also been only open for limited hours, managing partner Seth Simonian said.

“As 2020 came to an end and then going into 2021, we saw a pretty significant decline in applicant flow, while business didn’t really change,” Simonian said. “You have people who expect you to be open for lunch and dinner, and to be open seven days a week … Downtown Nashua has been our hardest to staff by far.”

None of LaBelle Winery’s three properties in Amherst, Derry and Portsmouth is operating full-time for similar reasons. Americus Restaurant, which opened in mid-May, currently offers dinner five nights a week and brunch and lunch on the weekends, but owner Amy LaBelle said the goal was to also have it be open during the week.

“Given the fact that there’s a golf course and many other daytime activities here on the property, it’s just staggering that we haven’t been able to get that accomplished. We just don’t have the staff,” LaBelle said. “The kitchen is definitely the hardest-hit, but even if I had a fully staffed kitchen I still couldn’t open full-time because I don’t have enough servers.”

Great New Hampshire Restaurants, Boucher said, remains slightly below its normal number of about 800 employees across the company’s 10 locations.

“Staffing has definitely improved for us, but I think the labor shortage is going to continue to be an issue in 2022,” he said. “It’s not exclusive to the restaurant industry either, that’s for sure.”

Beginning in 2022, in addition to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the company will be closing its restaurants on five additional holidays — President’s Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day and Columbus Day — and offering paid time off to its managers for those days.

“I think it’s going to be a really disruptive decision that we’re making to put us in a competitive place to attract employees and managers,” Boucher said. “It’s also a big win for our staff because they’ll be able to make plans to do something with their families or friends.”

Paying the price

Increasing food costs and ongoing supply chain issues have forced local restaurateurs to make critical choices about what to buy, problems they say aren’t likely to go away anytime soon.

“Inflation has really been the challenge,” Somers said. “It’s not about being able to get product. You could get it. It’s just whether or not you could afford to actually put it on the menu.”

LaBelle said she has especially felt these impacts since right around when Americus opened.

“When we are writing a menu now, we look at the prices first and we might say, OK, we can’t put this rib-eye on the menu right now. I’m not going to charge $70 for it,” she said. “So we’ve definitely tailored our menu to be able to reflect really good-quality food, but also things that we can get to people at a reasonable price without compromising our quality.”

Not being able to get the products right away, she added, only makes it more difficult.

“I used to be able to place a food order and get it the next day from our major food suppliers,” she said. “Now there’s a twice-a-week delivery schedule, because they don’t have people to deliver. So if I need something or if we run out of something, I can’t get that quick delivery that I used to be able to get. I have to wait until my designated delivery day. … So we’re not used to that, and it makes the chefs have to be super careful about what they’re ordering.”

At Firefly, Jones said she has already heard from purveyors warning that certain items may be hard to come by for anywhere from the next three to 12 months.

“You’re just so used to having everything at your fingertips,” she said, “but this year, it was just like all the rules go out the window. People have been very understanding, so that’s been great.”

Baines said he has experienced higher costs as well, particularly within the last six months or so.

“We did have to shrink the Mint [Bistro] menu a little bit and were reluctant to do so. Some of it is due to availability and some of it was just that the cost to put it on a plate just didn’t feel right to charge what we would have to to make it work,” he said. “I think you’ve seen that industry-wide. You’ve seen hours shrink and you’ve seen menu selections shrink.”

A taste of events to come

Here are a few foodie happenings to look forward to as we begin 2022. Be sure to visit the event’s website or contact the venue directly for the most up-to-date information.

• The Taste of Bedford is due to return on Tuesday, Jan. 11, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Bedford High School (47B Nashua Road), according to the event’s website. Bedford-area eateries will congregate for a night of food sampling, with proceeds benefiting the school’s Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) chapter, one of the largest in the state. Tickets are $10 per person, or $30 per family of four and $40 per family of five. Visit tasteofbedford.org.

• LaBelle Lights at LaBelle Winery Derry (14 Route 111) continues with a special Fire and Ice Weekend on Friday, Jan. 14, and Saturday, Jan. 15, featuring live performances like fire dancers and ice stilt walkers, in addition to bonfires, themed food and cocktail specials and more. Tickets are $15 to LaBelle Lights, which is being held from 4:30 to 9 p.m. on select days now through Feb. 26. Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras celebrations are also planned before LaBelle Lights closes for the season. Visit labellewinery.com/lights to view the full calendar schedule.

• New Hampshire Wine Week is right around the corner, and tickets are available now to the 18th annual Easterseals Winter Wine Spectacular on Thursday, Jan. 27, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Manchester Downtown (700 Elm St.). This will be the first in-person Winter Wine Spectacular since January 2020 — the pandemic forced its transition into a series of virtual tastings last year. Tickets are $65 for access to the grand tasting, or $135 for access to the Bellman Cellar VIP tasting room (limited availability), with proceeds benefiting Easterseals New Hampshire. For the most up-to-date details on New Hampshire Wine Week, which also includes bottle signings and wine tastings across the state, visit nhwineweek.com.

A cautious optimism

Despite a looming uncertainty about the future, most of the local restaurateurs we spoke with say they’re optimistic overall heading into 2022 — just as long as there isn’t another shutdown.

“We’re seeing the dining public out and about, and almost every restaurant I see is filling seats,” Baines said. “However people are feeling about it, they’re going out again.”

Nearly a year after opening Elm House of Pizza, Baines and Scribner are introducing another new concept in the Queen City. City Hall Pub, he said, is due to open in the former Cheddar & Rye space on the corner of Hanover and Elm streets by the third week of January.

“We have The Wild Rover, Mint Bistro, Elm House of Pizza and then City Hall Pub all under Southern New Hampshire Hospitality Group,” he said. “We’re going to offer a loyalty program within those four, so you can generate points and use them throughout each of the locations.”

LaBelle Winery, meanwhile, is due to finish construction on a new sparkling wine production facility and tasting room in Derry by late May 2022. LaBelle said plans are already underway to also bring back the highly successful LaBelle Lights holiday celebration next winter.

“We thought we would have 20,000 visitors throughout the three months of LaBelle Lights, but as it turns out, we’ve already had that many in the first month,” she said.

Boucher also said he’s noticed customers are coming back, making him hopeful for the future.

“Restaurants are obviously in the business to serve food, but they’re much more than that. They’re a gathering place,” he said. “It’s not just the food; it’s the warm hospitality that defines restaurants, and I think people really figured that out [by] staying at home through the pandemic. … I think restaurants will always thrive because eating at home just isn’t the same.”

A Year in the Kitchen: 2021 edition

The Hippo’s In the Kitchen Q&A series continued throughout 2021, with a different New Hampshire restaurant chef, baker or homestead business owner profiled each week.

Regular readers know that we like to turn to the experts for their thoughts on the biggest food trends currently sweeping the Granite State, and as the industry continues to experience the effects of the pandemic, the answers we received seemed to be all over the map. Farm-to-table dining, comfort items and vegan menus, and the ways we get our food beyond visiting a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant — think ghost kitchens, food trucks or third-party delivery apps — were some of the most common threads.

“I think restaurateurs in New Hampshire have done such an amazing job pivoting their operations over the last year and a half, regardless of what their business model is,” Lisa Kingsbury of Lush Confections in Derry told the Hippo in July. “I think they are more open to different possibilities than they would have otherwise been.”

It’s always fun to see what people come up with as an answer to another question we ask, “What celebrity would you like to see eating at your restaurant?” or “What celebrity would you like to have a meal with?” For the second consecutive year, the No. 1 answer was chef Gordon Ramsay of, among many other shows, Hell’s Kitchen. Actor and New Hampshire native Adam Sandler once again received a fair number of mentions — and, even though he’s no longer with us, the late chef and author Anthony Bourdain also continued to be a common answer.

“In culinary school, [Bourdain] was who we looked up to and somebody we aspired to be,” Jenn Martins of Brickoven Catering in Hudson told the Hippo in August.

We also like to give our interviewees the opportunity to give a shout out to their favorite local eateries. The answers to this question could not have been more diverse — almost everyone called a different restaurant their favorite. But there were a few recurring names, including MT’s Local Kitchen & Wine Bar in Nashua, The Black Trumpet Bistro in Portsmouth, the East Derry Tavern, and several of the La Carreta Mexican Restaurant locations.

Featured photo: Americus Restaurant opened in mid-May 2021 in Derry. Photo courtesy of LaBelle Winery.