Worcester Business Journal

4 Worcester Business Journal | October 31, 2022 | wbjournal.com F A C T B O O K R E S T A U R A N T S & H O S P I T A L I T Y e lunch crowd hasn't come back BY KEVIN KOCZWARA WBJ Staff Writer W ith six months le on their lease for their downtown Worces- ter lunch restaurant, Jaime and Ryan Sens told their landlord they planned not to re-up. Z Cafe would close aer 14 years. at's what they did. On Feb. 18, the Sens announced the end. ey decided it was time to move on with their lives aer two difficult years that almost broke them. "We were losing money every month we stayed open since the day COVID started," Jaime Sens said. e Sens encountered issue aer issue. Suppliers ran short of products and drivers, so they couldn't deliver as oen as usual, or even cut Z Cafe out entirely. e catering business Z Cafe relied on dried up as workers didn't return to offices for meetings. What went from a couple jobs daily dwindled to almost nothing. If workers weren't having meetings in the office, who were they going to cater for? "In the last six months we were there, we probably did 20 catering jobs," Ryan Sens said. e workforce became decentralized, and fewer people went out for a quick lunch. Z Cafe made its money on people coming in for a quick lunch. ey had banker's hours and fed the bankers nearby. ey knew some customers for years whose meals they could prep be- fore they ordered. But the clientele dried up with COVID, and fewer people were spending hours at the office. On top of that, plenty of people learned to cook while stuck in their homes for eight months during the pandemic. ere's the regular customer Sens saw one day who apologized for not coming in anymore, but he'd learned to cook and now loved doing it and bringing lunch to work. "If you pick a neighborhood or town and look around on different websites, [restaurants] aren't open [for lunch]," said Steve Clark, president and CEO of Worcester restaurants are still reeling from the loss of their regular midday crowds since COVID changed workplace and dining habits After closing the Z Cafe, Jaime and Ryan Sens focused on their Westborough store A Crystal Mine. (Below) The deadhorse hill restaurant hasn't been able to open consistently for lunch since its launch in 2016. PHOTOS | MATT WRIGHT

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