While many business establishments are not deemed essential by Gov. Tom Wolf due to COVID-19, there are several in Greater Pittston that remain open, in particular grocery stores, convenient marts and restaurants for take-outs.
Marianacci’s Restaurant, 8th St., Wyoming, has been a permanent fixture on the west side since 1972. Now owned and operated by Nick and Fred Marianacci, the two brothers were at a crossroads when Wolf came down with strict restrictions on the food services industry.
It was apparent food could no longer be served in-house so Marianacci’s, much like several other restaurants, decided to sell food via take-out or delivery.
“We’ve never had this (health pandemic) before, so we started with two people in the kitchen in the day and two people and a dishwasher at night, because we didn’t know how this was going to pan out,” Fred Marianacci said.
It didn’t take long before the Marianacci brothers knew they were going to succeed or fail with just a take-out and delivery service.
“That first weekend, we ended up with a full staff in the kitchen because we got slammed. It was almost like the dining room was full,” Marianacci admitted. “I have six or seven in the kitchen on Friday or Saturday nights.”
According to Marianacci, the phone will begin to ring after 4 p.m. for dinner take-outs or deliveries.
“We use three iPads with food-ordering services Grubhub, Uber Eats, Doordash, they’re going off constantly,” Marianacci said. “We’re considered a “hot spot” were people are hitting us on those services. On Friday and Saturday nights, we have two people in the bar answering the phone and monitoring the iPad orders.”
Marianacci admitted his take-out service was always robust prior to the COVID-19 breakout were 70% of his business was eat-in dining and 30% take-out.
“Now, take-outs have jumped to 70% to 80% of the business even with the dining room closed,” Marianacci said. “So our business numbers are off, but not off by that much and if had to stay open like this for the next six months, we can stay open.”
The biggest surprise has been customer choices for take-out. While some eating establishments have condensed their menu for take-out, Marianacci said customers are ordering off of a full menu.
The Kitchen by Nikki, located at Wyoming Ave., Exeter, next to Voitek TV & Appliances, has some eat-in seating but is primarily known as a take-out establishment.
For owners Nikki Skesavage, Matt Skesavage (brother and sister), and Joelle Rubino, the decision to stay open wasn’t a difficult one.
“We stayed open for a week after the order came down from Gov. Wolf to see how business would be,” Nikki Skesavage said. “Business is down, but are still doing a lot of deliveries and we started curb-side service take-out service. We cut our hours back to Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.”
With the decision to close after 4 p.m., Skesavage said their total revenue loss could be as high as 40%.
“When we were told to stay in as much as possible, after 4 o’clock it’s like a ghost town, so that’s why we decided to close. It’s not worth staying open,” Skesavage admitted. “We use Facebook to get our menu out and even though business has declined, as long as we’re getting orders, we’ll stay open.”
Skesavage said she hopes when the warmer weather begins, business will pick up.
