At two restaurants, owners ask themselves, ‘How can we improve our quality of life?’

Chef-owners, the backbone of the restaurant industry, have faced assorted roadblocks since the start of the pandemic — from mundane issues such as the price and availability of takeout containers to the more recent challenge of inflation, which can make menu-pricing a crapshoot.

For many owners, the overarching issue has been labor — not only attracting and retaining employees but a desire to improve their own quality of life.

In recent weeks, with the approach of the third anniversary of the first shutdowns, the chefs behind two popular restaurants announced bold changes.

Dominic Piperno at Hearthside, a BYOB in Collingswood, has moved from traditional a la carte service to a fixed-price menu, while Ed Crochet and Justine MacNeil at Fiore Fine Foods, an Italian bar-restaurant in South Philadelphia, plan to move from Queen Village to a smaller cafe setup, with no nights, in Kensington.

Fiore Fine Foods opened in early 2019 to acclaim at 757 S. Front St. in the short-lived Kanella South. Crochet and MacNeil moved to Philadelphia from New York to establish roots in a city that MacNeil said had an “approachable, human scale.”

They were hitting their stride when the pandemic shut them down. They made food for pickup and eventually returned to dinner service indoors. The second shutdown sent them rethinking the idea of a conventional restaurant, and the arrival of their son a year ago sealed the deal.

Through April 1, Fiore Fine Foods is offering dinner Wednesday through Saturday, plus Sunday brunch. Then it will close, and hope to open in late spring or early summer at 2413 Frankford Ave., the former Flow State Coffee Bar.

The restaurant will move to daytime hours five days a week at what will be simply known as Fiore. “We think this will help a lot of team members and give everyone a better work-life balance, allowing them to do stuff with their families, which is just kind of impossible with a p.m. restaurant,” MacNeil said, pointing out that she would not get evening day-care for their son.

Although the menu will be aimed at breakfast, brunch, and lunch, she said, “we want to take a lot of the style we do at dinner and offer it during the day without it being as formal as dinner service. We still want to offer the same quality of dishes and offer stuff that translates a little better for daytime.”

The idea, she said, is to ”help guide us toward doing a different path, where we both can still be chefs and can make the food we want to do.”

The announced change has not gone unnoticed. Queen Village neighbors are flooding comment sections with sadness, while residents of Fishtown and Kensington are rejoicing. MacNeil’s gelato is at stake here.

“Step inside Hearthside, and all the senses are sparked,” began Inquirer critic Craig LaBan’s December 2017 review of the modern American BYOB on Haddon Avenue founded by Piperno and his wife, Lindsay. “The best new restaurant in South Jersey,” the headline proclaimed.

The live-fire grill roared with flames, the reservation book was full, business hummed along. But Piperno — a veteran of high-end kitchens, like Crochet and MacNeil — felt the strain.

Right around Hearthside’s recent Christmas break, as the restaurant was coming off its busiest summer and fall, Piperno said he lost two more line cooks, throwing the labor situation into disarray.

He started talking to general manager Ashley Hayden and sous chef Tom Anastasia about switching to tasting (or fixed-price) menus, served family style. “Once I saw the success that Chad and Hannah [Williams] were having with it [at Friday Saturday Sunday in Center City], it made me realize that I could do this — not just for myself and the work life and personal life balance, but also more importantly for the staff.”

Piperno wanted to fix the labor model, and make it a win-win for himself and his employees. “It’s always like, this is what you make as a line cook, and you just work as many hours as you possibly can,” he said. “A lot of times, I still wasn’t making ends meet. I really wanted to try to focus on my employees and what can we do as a restaurant that could provide a better work life and better pay. An hourly line cook is not always the most glamorous paycheck.”

As an owner, Piperno said he felt “kind of handcuffed a little bit” with the economics. “That’s when I decided that our menu is very large, the overhead is aggressive, there is waste. I started really thinking and pricing out these tasting menus.”

The upshot: Dinner would be offered by reservation only, four nights a week. Set menus, changing every two weeks and priced according to the food ($95 to $125 a person), allow Piperno and Anastasia to budget better. “We had some guests that come in and order three-course meals finished with the porterhouse,” Piperno said. “But then, we’ve had four-tops that come in and order just a couple of appetizers and a couple of pastas and they get out for $30 to $40 a person. I understand that style of dining, as well, but unfortunately, that doesn’t always translate into a very profitable restaurant.”

Tasting menus, which began last weekend (first with South American fare and next with Italian food), also give front-of-the-house staff a better idea of the work, and their expected tips.

The work is more streamlined, and so is the kitchen staff. “Before COVID, I had a chef de cuisine, a sous chef, a pastry chef, four line cooks and a prep cook,” he said. “And now, I have myself, a sous chef-slash-pastry chef, and two line cooks.” He said wages would improve, and paid health insurance and time off would be added. More people will become salaried.

The kitchen staff now helps design menus. “It becomes a team game again, which is what I’ve always loved about cooking,” Piperno said.

Further, “we’re not at the mercy of having to do 120 to 140 covers per night,” Piperno said. “We can make the same profit margins doing almost half the covers.”

The idea, Piperno said, is ultimately to provide a similar dining experience for his guests. “I feel responsible for my staff, to get into a better place and to make their lives a little bit better,” he said. “It’s the only way this industry is going to survive.”