I don’t bring it up often, but my family is in the restaurant business. My husband and I met when I came to work at his family’s restaurant when I was 20 years old. I was taking a mental health break from college for a semester and needed a job, so I stumbled in to a local restaurant and ended up working there on and off for over a decade. That’s a story for another time.
Suffice it to say, I have worked the front of the house in a restaurant for a lot of my life. Server, bartender, hostess, manager, banquet server, retail sales, I’ve done it. I have learned that it is not the life for me. (Add that to the list of stories for another time.) Still, my husband’s restaurant is a huge part of our family economy, so there are certain days every year when I go to work and pitch in. Father’s Day, Oktoberfest celebrations, and so on. Mother’s Day is usually one of those days.
As you likely know, the restaurant business has been radically changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many establishments are closed. Others are trying take-out, delivery, family-style offerings, and whatever else they can cook up. Heck, some are even offering grocery-style shopping. Pivoting quickly to focus on survival.
It was just recently that Georgia decided to allow restaurant dining rooms to open with detailed, extensive safety measures and very limited capacity. We are lucky to have a restaurant with a large dining room. Other restaurants may not even be able to try to open their dining areas just because of the safety measures and square footage requirements.
This Mother’s Day was the first time our dining room had been open in well over a month. My daughter and I were pinch hitting to help things run smoothly. Here are just a few of the rules: Paper menus instead of plastic sleeves so they could be disposed of each use. Gloves…I think I changed my gloves 50 times during a 6-hour shift. No bringing pitchers to the table to refill any drinks. Just bring a new fresh glass. Spread guests out at every third table or so. No groups over six people, which is often the minimum number for many tables on Mother’s Day at our place. Deep cleaning all surfaces…we scrubbed tabletops and every part of every chair anyone touched with sanitizer all shift. Since we couldn’t use our typical tablecloths, this was a lengthy chore. When done, we left a card on the table letting customers know it had been thoroughly cleaned.
Maybe the biggest change was the masks. I had a coworker from my school make me cloth masks to wear a while ago. They are more or less comfortable. They are much better than the awkward constricting bandana I tried at the beginning of corona. Still, after a while with the mask on you find yourself breathing differently. It’s always sweaty and warm under there. I was breathing more heavily, like I was working out or something, after just a minute with the mask on. It was a relief to take it off every once in a while, or just let my nose peek out for 30 seconds or so. Apparently it’s even worse if you wear glasses.
I wondered, could people tell if I was smiling at them? I do smile with my eyes but I’m still not sure. (No comment on my overgrown eyebrows which are tragic, or the bags under my eyes!) I wore more eye makeup thinking that would be the part people could see.
I learned quickly that most guests couldn’t understand what I was saying, so I spoke less and less as the shift wore on. I hardly wished anyone Happy Mother’s Day, which is usually a big part of my job being the “Comfortable Committee” on those days. I suppose I was just caught up in the strangeness of it all. It didn’t feel festive. Not many dressed for church. No tables filled with gifts or flowers for the Moms. Only a handful of photos taken. The dining rooms weren’t crammed with smiling faces. (And we are usually wall-to-wall with a waiting list for hours on Mother’s Day.) It felt tense, with our focus on staying safe and sterile over warm and welcoming. It is what is needed right now. We want our customers to feel safe with us. Still, it is very different than the atmosphere in most years.
Just an insider’s view of what it’s like to work in a restaurant for Mother’s Day during the pandemic. Thankfully, we had quite a few people dine with us and many families took brunch and sweets to go. This daily income is truly a lifeline for your local restaurants.
Sadly, when I got home from working, I read a long string of complaints and disappointments on social media from people who had waited hours for food ordered from major chains. Steakhouses, southern cooking, seafood, you name it. All took enormous numbers of online orders and the system broke down. People waited and waited, no one answering the phone, no one updating them. When only a few miles away we had tables sitting empty and cooks and servers ready to make great food! It won’t always be perfect, but please give your local places a chance.
Our family’s place has been the site of engagements, weddings, showers, celebrations of all kinds and so many other special occasions. Please support those quirky, unique little places now. Support the ones that hold your memories, even if it is a little strange to do these days. If they are able to open at all, they are likely working their tails off to keep you safe and keep their business alive and employees working. If you can, please dine with your favorite local places! Support the places you want to see come out the other side of this challenge with your dollars, your social media buzz, and any other support you can offer.
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