Some 100,000 restaurants were forced to close, at least temporarily, in just the first six months of the pandemic. The loss of tourism has been especially catastrophic for many businesses here in New Orleans. It’s shocking that the government has, through its inaction, decided to let all of these small businesses die.
To say we’ve been lucky would take away from the incredible work that our staff has done. To say it was just hard work would take away from the many great restaurants that we have seen forced to close forever. It was certainly an incredible combination of the two. We owe a tremendous debt to our customers, who have been adapting with us.
We’re still here, but we’re not fine. Over the summer another chef came to collect his takeout, and we asked him how things were going. “You know,” he said (with some modifications for civility), “it’s terrible, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. I know I’m lucky to still be in business, and I know that it sucks a lot worse for a lot of people. But this really is terrible.”
It was cathartic. In that moment it became clear how strained things had become. The monotony and the uncertainty, the cabin fever. Even one of the dining room tables had started to sag, under the weight of a steam table and a thousand compactly stacked takeout bags.
Over the course of the pandemic, the restrictions continued to change. At one point, the only takeout cocktails we could sell were frozen ones, so we bought a frozen drink machine. It was loud, but we didn’t have guests inside, so whatever. Then to-go alcoholic beverages were banned entirely. Then they were allowed again, I think? It’s a blur, at least partly induced by the fact that we’ve drunk a lot of the booze that we weren’t allowed to sell.
Some indoor dining was approved, and we opened up again at a limited capacity — 25 percent, then 50 percent, then 75 percent, then back to 50 percent. We installed plexiglass partitions on top of our booths and provided hand sanitizer at each table, which a lot of people seem to think is a gift for them to take home.
The true difficulty was trying to explain to people why, when half the tables were open, we couldn’t seat them. One particularly inebriated guest who did not want to wait suggested that we gorge ourselves on a sack full of genitals. We told him we didn’t serve that dish.