Once a Baker and Local Business Owner, Now the COVID-19 Police

It’s been a fair amount of time since I posted last. Even in this time of altered routines I’ve started to fall back into my old habit of just being busy.  This statement is contradictory, but I will say that while hasn’t gotten any less hard it is become a little bit easier. What I mean by that is it’s still more work than it once was; but, like most things we adjust to the new amount of effort required.

I want to spend a moment talking about dining-in. For a couple of weeks now – maybe it’s less, time has lost most meaning – Los Angeles has permitted people to eat in restaurants and not just do take-out and delivery. I have, up to now, been reluctant to reintroduce dine-in. The first reason is that we just started to really get into the rhythm of take-out/delivery only. We’ve made adjustments to the physical store and to our work routine and another series of changes will be a step back. The second reason is that the list of rules and regulations involved  in adding dine-in are extensive. Ultimately, for a small space like mine, I would gain only a few seats. And the simple business math is that I wouldn’t really gain enough additional revenue to justify the effort and the expense. The third and probably most compelling reason is that I’m not sure that the public is entirely ready. There are undoubtedly many people who want to eat out and we’ve started to get more and more phone calls asking about dine-in. But at the same time, we still have lots of people come in who are incredibly uncertain. I see a spectrum of people from those who think masks and all the restrictions are silly to those who would probably be more comfortable if everything, including themselves, was laminated!  We still have lots of people checking out everyone else’s behavior and of course, everyone is an expert. People are more and more comfortable sharing their expertise when it differs from someone else’s. 

What that boils down to is that we have – without volunteering for it – been deputized into being the COVID-19 police. When someone walks in without a mask, we have to tell them to put on a mask. When someone isn’t keeping their distance, we have to ask them to step back. And I can only imagine what will happen if we have someone sitting too close to someone else. I don’t really want to be the policeman. It’s hard enough being the salesman. 

All that said I’m considering opening a couple of tables outside just to give the option for people who do want to sit down. As I’ve mentioned before, I am fortunate that my success is not contingent on people sitting down to eat their bagel or muffin. 

In the good news department – we did a great promotion with Camp Ramah in California.  Recognizing how many kids and families are missing camp this summer, we offered a morsel of comfort in the form of their famous Shabbat morning chocolate muffins.  With a portion of sales going back to camp as a donation, we sold and shipped nearly 2000 muffins! It was a tremendous success and a real pleasure to work with such a vibrant community.

So now it’s summer. Schools are out. Summer camps are not really happening, though some day camps are. What would normally be the start of the tourist season is now just the start of summer 2020. I ‘m curious to see how the next few months feels different from the spring. People are clearly antsy to get out.  You can see it in the streets with the increased traffic. All of the activity seems to contradict the reports of more and more cases.  And once again we’re all experts as we parse the data of infections versus hospitalizations versus deaths. Spend five minutes behind a counter and you will quickly learn that everyone has an opinion. I’m so glad that my opinion is the right one ☺.