Food industry professionals weigh in on lessons Covid has taught.

Overwhelmingly, Covid-19 has not been kind to the restaurant industry. Across the country – and close to home – restaurants have closed in droves, unable to survive shelter-in-place. Those restaurants that did survive the first shutdown were eventually allowed to open with outdoor seating, and then with limited indoor seating for a short period of time. Most recently, under the latest state stay-at-home rules that took effect in Monterey County on Dec. 13, outdoor dining is a no-go again.

So asking restaurateurs what 2020 has taught them, an innocuous-sounding question, turns out to be a minefield of emotional highs and lows.

“Never plan too far ahead,” Luz Cedillo, co-owner of Main Street Bakery in Salinas, says with a laugh when asked what this time has taught her. Of course “having dreams is great,” she qualifies, but the pandemic has forced a certain realism in her business – don’t over-invest, work within your means, stay agile. Main Street Bakery closed for two weeks at the beginning of the pandemic, but then slowly reopened for takeout and delivery. Loyal customers and an already established catering side, Cedillo says, helped keep the business alive.

Will Aldrich, director of coffee at Captain + Stoker in Monterey, echoes this sentiment of operating carefully. Covid has forced him to be “very intentional” about business decisions, he says. “You really have to have a reason and a plan.”

Similar to catering in the case of Main Street Bakery, Aldrich says to-go culture has kept Captain + Stoker afloat. Both Cedillo and Aldrich are grateful for this, but observe that the amount of waste generated – paper to-go cups, plastic food containers and cutlery – is a significant downside.

Aldrich has noticed another change, too, a kind of shift in work culture that he views as a positive development. The pandemic brings with it a heightened awareness of your individual impact on the collective. We’re all facing this together – checking in on a coworker’s mental health, for example, means it’s less of a “clock in and clock out” job than perhaps it once was.

Food industry professionals also spend a lot of time thinking about the impact of their actions on the customer. Going out to eat has become a rare experience this year, so expectations are high.

“It feels extra-important to try to create a moment – an experience – right now for a guest,” says Andrea Rue, events director at Coast in Big Sur. When Kim Solano, owner of the Haute Enchilada in Moss Landing, opened her patio for dining after seven months of being closed, she was “overwhelmed” by the gratitude of her customers. “So that’s been really gratifying and really awesome,” she says.

Chef Tim Wood, who launched his new venture, Woody’s at the Airport, during the pandemic, has an especially clear-eyed view on hospitality during a stressful time. The pandemic, he says, “turns it up to 11 when it comes to the good parts of your personality and the bad parts of your personality.” Rude customers are ruder, but the kind ones, the compassionate ones, are even more kind and compassionate. “I’d like to believe that we’re seeing a lot more of the good side,” Wood says.

But perhaps the central silver lining of Covid is the opportunity that it has given everyone, regardless of where they sit, to pause and consider the future. Putting your career and business on hold is hard, but it can be healthy, too. Paul Corsentino, for example, the executive chef at Salt Wood in Marina, was furloughed during SIP 1.0 and got to spend an unexpected two months with his 6-month-old son. This kind of newfound work-life balance is positive, he says, but he doesn’t expect it’ll remain once the pandemic ends.

Chef Nick Balla at Coast, however, has ideas for industry-wide changes that could emerge out of this disruption. “[Covid has] shown that there were cracks in the system,” he says. Specifically, the prices and range of choice consumers have become accustomed to rely on a system that pays “starvation wages” along its supply chain: “We need to educate our guests” about what things actually cost, Balla says. “We need to look toward the future and be honest. Covid gives us the opportunity to think about a whole new nourishment industry.”