Our restaurant has pretty steadily served 30-50 people a night with another 10-20 during lunch since re-opening. Most prefer the patio but our tables are more like 7 or even 8 feet apart than 6 thanks to the depth of our space so indoor dining is pretty comfortable.

We've hosted a handful of ~30 people wedding related events as well and those can be kind of unsettling. Last night we had people from California, Texas and Florida at the wedding, and only two or three of them were wearing masks any time they weren't eating or drinking. They were at tables of five or less and sequestered by place of origin, but of course at the end of the night there was mingling and saying hello, so...those definitely make you a little nervous.

One employee has tested positive since March, so we closed for a day to do a deep clean and everyone was required to take an $80 test with a 15 minute turn around time (paid for by the restaurant) before we could return to work. We all tested negative so it's presumed he got it from a backyard birthday party he'd attended...but he did work two shifts between the party and the positive result, so... The fallout from that is one of our retail employees who also handles party coordinating deciding to work from home solely on party communications while looking for a different line of work, the positive employee obviously self-quarantining (he shows very mild symptoms after a week) and another employee who was gearing up to return deciding it just isn't worth it for her. So we have this super skeleton crew right now and as easy as it feels like it should be to convince somebody to work at a restaurant where everyone has a good time and there's zero interpersonal drama for ~$30 an hour...the pandemic complicates things exceptionally and anyone who wants to work wants to stay home where they're familiar and comfortable. Which totally makes sense.


I'm a huge creature of habit, though, so we finish up and go across the street to the industry bar every night like normal. The staff wears masks the entire time, we always take a table outside and I always wear a mask when I go back inside to use the restroom or talk to the bartender(s). It's also become a sort of important nightcap for me because one of the cocktail waitresses is one of the most vocal organizers for Black Lives Matter in Omaha, and two of the others are in charge of a local bail fund (on Saturday night over 100 protestors were kettled, peppered and then arrested for failure to disperse while crossing a bridge during what had otherwise been a sanctioned, escorted protest through midtown Omaha until the police decided it wasn't) so it's becoming not just a service industry meeting hub but a protest hub as well and it helps me find ways I can contribute without putting myself out there as a health risk or reducing hours at work.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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