Some New York bar and restaurant owners say they knew the economic climate was getting dire when their waiters, waitresses and bartenders vanished during their off hours. For a time after Sept. 11, tips fell so sharply that employees could not afford to spend their time on the drinking side of the bar, where half their drinks were often free. þþThings are not yet so good, owners say, that employees are spending their off-hours at other bars, where they get no special consideration. But across Manhattan, bar and restaurant owners report more of their employees hanging out after work. þþÿThey have more money to spend because tips are real good,ÿ said Kevin O'Lunney, the owner of Kevin St. James, a quirky Irish pub on Eighth Avenue at 47th Street. ÿI only worry about whether they will be at work on time the next day.ÿþþIt may be too early to tell whether restaurants, bars and other tourism-related businesses are in full recovery. But, according to employment figures, tourism is one of the few segments of the New York City job market that has shown growth since Sept. 11. And within that sector, bars and restaurants — among the hardest-hit by the terrorist attack — are the subsection hiring most quickly.þþRestaurants in the city have experienced three back-to-back months of job growth from April to June, according to seasonally adjusted employment data analyzed by The New York Stat, a newsletter on the local economy. In total, the bar and restaurant industry lost about 11,900 of its 161,800 jobs after the attack and since bottoming out has brought back 5,500 workers, even though many of the jobs pay less. þþÿNo one thought tourism would be back this quickly,ÿ said Barbara Byrne Denham, chief economist at The New York Stat, who says she believes that tourism is driving the restaurant and bar rebound.þþThat has been good news for people like Lorraine Dowd, who came to New York last August to live with her aunt in Maspeth, Queens, and quickly found a job as a waitress in a Midtown restaurant. þþMs. Dowd, 22, was supposed to start on Sept. 12. Instead, she began working a week later. The job paid $40, plus tips, for an eight-hour shift. ÿIt was really slow,ÿ she said recently. ÿThere was barely anyone on the street. I liked to remind customers that we did not make a lot of money — wink, wink; I hoped they would leave a good tip.ÿ þþAfter several months, Ms. Dowd, who grew up in County Kilkenny, Ireland, quit her job, in part because she was unhappy with the money, and considered leaving the country. But in April, she was able to find a job at Kevin St. James. ÿIt was a miracle, but it worked out perfectly,ÿ she said.þþThe signs of improvements in the job market for waiters, waitresses, cooks and other bar and restaurant workers can be seen everywhere tourists roam, from B. B. King's club on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, to the Harp, a bar on 32nd Street and Seventh Avenue that attracts a mix of people coming out of Madison Square Garden and tourists leaving Macy's.þþAt some bars and restaurants, the rebound is being driven by a mix of tourists as well as New Yorkers and suburbanites who rediscovered Manhattan after Sept. 11. B. B. King's, a blues and jazz club, is one of those places. Employees there said they bonded when times got tough after the attacks, helping provide one another with everything from a place to live to extra cash when tips were bad. As business began improving, workers say, they started hanging out more at the bar.þþÿIt's definitely gotten a lot better since 9/11,ÿ said Rachel Bialkowski, 27, an off-duty waitress at B. B. King's who was drinking Scotch at the bar. ÿWe are getting out and spending more money because we can afford to.ÿþþAt the Harp, sports fans and businesspeople at lunch are returning. The sour economy changed the way the Harp's employees spent their off hours. ÿWe went out anyway,ÿ Karolyne Sweeney, a waitress, said of the weeks and months of bad tips at the beginning of the year, while drinking at another bar owned by her bosses. ÿNow, more money means more beer.ÿ þþMs. Denham, the economist, said that April is a month in which bars and restaurants in New York traditionally begin gearing up for summer crowds. But Ms. Denham said that this year's increases in jobs were much higher than normal, driven in part by an attempt to compensate for deep staff cuts right after the attack.þþMs. Denham added, ÿThe weak dollar has made coming here more attractive for a lot of visitors, and Middle America has picked up some of the slack where international tourists left off.ÿþþAt Kevin St. James, shiny cutouts of shamrocks dangle from the ceiling, but this is not the average Irish bar. More Williamsburg, Brooklyn, than Old Country, the bar attracts a healthy number of tourists with its digital jukebox that spews a mix of 30,000 pop, rock, jazz and R & B songs, a menu that includes Mediterranean cuisine, and a staff that hails from places like India, Mexico, Ecuador and Bosnia (it did not hurt that the bar gained a bit of a global following through beer.com, which installed a live Webcam above the bar for a while).þþMr. O'Lunney, 26, who opened Kevin St. James three years ago, believes his bar has weathered the worst of this downturn.þþÿI like to say, `My family has been serving Guinness for over 100 years,' ÿ said Mr. O'Lunney, a fourth-generation bar owner who remembers serving his first drink at age 6 in a family bar in County Cavan, Ireland. ÿWe have now seen and been through it all.ÿ þþThe rebound has allowed Mr. O'Lunney to hire people like Ms. Dowd, a short woman with hair the color of obsidian, whose uniform includes sandals with two-inch heels. She arrived at about 9:30 one recent morning. By lunchtime, the bar and a couple of tables were packed with businesspeople and the ironworkers from a construction site nearby. By the late evening, the bar was packed with tourists and others.þþSoon, Ms. Dowd was done with work and settling down with a few Heineken beers and a couple of friends, including a waitress from Brooklyn. As she relaxed, Ms. Dowd began pointing to the upsides and downsides of the job: the men who think they are Don Juan (bad); the friendships a bartender can develop with customers (good); and the tips (good right now, and now is what matters).þþShe considers herself fortunate to have a job. ÿIt was an accident. I was lucky, but it's great craic,ÿ she said, using the Irish word for fun that is often reserved for having a good laugh at the most absurd of circumstances.þþAt 12:59 a.m., with the music blaring but the crowd dwindling, a waitress nearing the end of her shift put the check on the table. As if to make a point about the importance of tipping and their ability to leave a good one, Ms. Dowd and her co-workers at the table laid down $100 on a bill of $48.12.þ
Source: NY Times
