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There aren't many days in this quarter that will generate revenue in the same way that upcoming events will: Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Superbowl.
We see, all of the sudden, well that's how it looks, sounds, and feels, that government is tracking for reopening restaurants for dine-in at whatever capacity they decide. 25%, 50%, free-for-all.
Here's what none of that addresses: the ticking time bomb of a new variant that is already stateside that puts us almost exactly in the same time frame as last year when not much was known about OG Covid.
While the vaccine is happening at roughly 1.2M shots per day that is barely reaching any sort of numbers we need to be getting at because those shots are mostly going to:
People in nursing homes that probably aren't going to go out for Valentine's Day, Superbowl, and/or Mardi Gras festivities. However, the service staff of these places aka essential workers, sort of, are going to have to deal with this head-on, like always.
The brazen guests that are already chomping at the bit to go party it up, celebrate, and/or run to restaurants like they're helping have little to no idea of what really happens.
The problem is they see "restaurant" personified and the idea of "restaurant" to them has changed into helping and almost treating it like charity. They're doing their part by dining and tipping big!
This leads us to employees on the ground level of restaurants:cooks, FOH, dishwashers, bartenders, that will be forced to go back to work, or not because of an EO that was signed, but that's just to get back on unemployment. Anywho, it puts these people in a really awful place.
Why? There is no way of knowing, to this day, who has covid or not when they step inside of your restaurant. Quick tests? Nope. Testing yesterday? Not good enough. You can have 20 people in your restaurant and if one person has it that's one more than you need.
So you find out a guest has it because you get contacted by the health department or the guest informs you. What do you do? You just opened two days ago? A week ago? Do you close or do you just ignore it? That's really the only option now for people that want to open.
If you close then everyone goes back on unemployment, ingredients are trashed, and you lose a lot of money. If you stay open and ignore, holy shit can of worms, but people are doing this.
Thing is, not enough is being done, and has never been, to make sure everyone in the space is covid negative. The testing, getting results, and vaccines aren't there. So why reopen and continue play that game? Have you seen what's been going on with Gamestop, gambling?
At this point in the pandemic we have things to look forward to: vaccine and that's about it but if those aren't happening we are just bringing back covid hotspots and having people exposed for the chance at not having to worry about what they have to cook tonight.
A lot of the people pushing to reopen are ignorant and plainly they are just treating their employees like in their game of 1D chess, there are no winners there except for their chance at driving revenue.
This industry, as a whole, continuously puts the workers doing the work in the back seat of just about everything. The people in power do the best job of highlighting the needs of the guests and how that benefits "restaurant".
How can this all change? More of a shift is needed from everyone to realize that employees are scared, don't have the help they need, and guests coming from outside in are a big threat to their health and safety.
Does pushing for industry people getting vaccinated help? Absolutely because it's barely in the conversation now so a push needs to happen before a push to reopen is considered.
One thing you need to understand about this industry is employees that organize are pushed out, blacklisted, and are seen as industry killers for creative thinking in restaurants. It's nearly impossible for employees to have representation for their own needs.
The push for targeted dates through this past year has made restaurants open. Saw it with summer time last year, then a spike, holidays, then a spike, and now we are at this micro revenue generation time, with the added bonus of variants that will drive...... a spike.
No need to listen to me, I'm not a doctor. Go read for yourself, like I do, the information is out there. We shouldn't be opening right now and there is no help or guarantee that the person that serves you or makes your food is safe. There isn't a tip big enough.
And don't forget that another round of PPP just went out/is going out so restaurants are on a timeline to spend the money so they can achieve forgiveness of the debt.
