Dear Portland Diners,
To the majority of you, THANK YOU, for showing support to your local eateries and watering holes. For your patience in understanding the new regulations in place, for wearing your mask when not seated at your table, for tipping generously, for being compassionate humans.
Those of us fortunate enough to still have jobs are doing our best to provide a safe space for our community to relax and socialize in during a global pandemic. We understand life is especially tough right now and providing any sense of “normalcy” is our pleasure. We also want these things.
Trust me when I say we also don’t like calling last call at 9:30. We also no longer get to enjoy those bustling Friday nights, line out the door, completely in the weeds, doing the dance with our extended family, and then walking with a fat wad of cash in the wee hours of the night. And no longer do we have those quiet weeknights spent with our favorite regulars bellied up to the bar, keeping us company until close.
For so many of us, the hospitality industry has been our main bread and butter since day one. We’ve flipped burgers to buy our first car, traded countless nights of sleep to earn those coveted bartending shifts, and squirreled away our life savings in hopes to open our own joint someday.
We are now on the laundry list of industries that have changed entirely. Running around wearing face coverings for 8 hours, adhering to strict sanitation guidelines, picking up heaps of food debris and trash now that most everything is served to-go, tirelessly exposing ourselves to germs, day in and day out to make ends meet, grappling with uncertainty and heightened expectations, and adapting overnight to a whole new way of operations, all while doing it gracefully and with a smile.
Many of our friends are still unemployed. Many of our friends stand by and watch as their lifelong dreams vanish before their eyes. Many of us do not know if we will have jobs tomorrow. We are heartbroken.
So the next time you go out to have someone prepare you a drink or cook you food and then clean up after you, please try to keep these things in mind. If the inconvenience of online ordering or an overwhelmed staff during a devastating pandemic is the hardest part of your day, consider yourself lucky.
Cheers.