Everyone has to eat

I grew up in small town Virginia as the son, grandson, and great-grandson of successful tire-men. From retreads to passenger tires, full auto service, and even a little racing, Miller Tire was a brand in my hometown. At an early age, adults would ask me if I was going to take over the family business. I’d eventually become the first Lester Miller to not get his hands dirty under a car, and instead I chose the restaurant business. I remember once at a family event an acquaintance asking my grandfather if I too was in the tire business. My grandfather said, “No, he’s smarter than us tire men. He’s in the restaurant business. He knows that one day people might not drive, but they’ll always have to eat.”

That’s resonated throughout my career, always lending a certain comfort that, no matter what, I’ll always be able to find a job. It was that mentality of “there will always be something” in this industry that gave me security in forging into adulthood without a college degree.

If you’ve ever kept going back to a restaurant for the food, even though the service is so terrible, maybe you can understand why we work in that industry. Sure, the experience can be brutal – long waits, hectic dining rooms, 86’d product, and more. But when you get that meal you have been craving all day, that special one-thing that you drove all the way across town for and stand in line just to devour because it’s so good. That’s why we deal with these stupid hours – we work when everyone else is off: nights, weekends, holidays. We clopen (that means we closed last night, when home for a drink and a shower, and came back to open this morning). We work 10-12 hours without a food break (in most states) and when we do get a bite, it was some dead food sitting in the window for an hour and it was cold, and we eat it standing up, hunched over a trash can. But we love where we work and what we do, and it moves our soul in a way that absolutely nothing else will.

Move us it does! This industry is a way of life with its own language and set of laws that govern a complex, yet overly curated set of systems and processes that orchestrate the calamity into that dining experience. We freaking love it when there’s a line out the door! 48 open menus! We need runners! Behind you! Swinging hot! Manager to table 27! Lead ticket on 17, Chef. Can I get a dishwasher and mop to the men’s room? Are we out of chocolate cake? Again? Runners? That migraine inducing shredding grind of the kitchen printer echoes through our brains and we thrive on the rush.

That’s another reason I chose the restaurant business over the tire business. I just never saw changing tires being as much fun as getting my ass kicked on sauté on a Friday night. I surely have had ups and downs in my career, but I’ve thrived on the pressure and pandemonium. In my 20’s I knew everything I thought I could know at my job and was fired. Twice. Both times I had a job within a week. But right now, I’m looking around, and… those printers have stopped screeching. There’s no symphony of bedlam on expo. There’s no post shift beer, with tired feet while we marvel at the covers we just did.

The landscape of our industry has flipped quicker than a dining room full of people that came in at 6:15 trying to catch a 7:00 show. In the time it takes to spell coronavirus we went from in the weeds to closed. For the first time in decades, many of us had a weekend off that we didn’t use vacation to get. The day before St. Patrick’s Day, our Irish bar cousin’s biggest day of the year, the President of our country laid out restrictions limiting the number of people in areas and encouraged people to not be out in public. Watch that address here. “Don’t go to restaurants.” And they listened – as they should. As we all should. So, we reluctantly closed or made battlefield adjustments to shrink down to carry out operations only. We purged prep. We donated perishables and cleaned out coolers. It’s not that we don’t want to – we have to. We are scared too. Some of us are even relieved we’re not all essential. Many of us can be home and be safe.

We have rallied around each other in times of need. I know leaders have been working the phone like never before, checking in with colleagues from other brands. We share the news of layoffs and closures, and we hope to hear that we or our close friends are “safe…. For now.” There has been little to comfort us these last few weeks as we’ve wrapped our heads around this in awe. It was stunning at first two weeks ago as we saw the first closure, lay off, or termination we weren’t expecting. Now we’ve seen it explode through our industry. Virtually every brand, concept, and person we know in this industry has been personally negatively affected by a loss of job, a closure, lay off, furlough, or significant pay cut. The depths of this industry gutting have been unprecedented and the unfathomable has happened. People have stopped eating out.

There is nothing but uncertainty in our industry. Words like “think,” “hope,” “expect,” and “guess” are now core parts of plans to re-open or expand back out to full service. We sit and wait, watching the news – scouring the web for reports on our brethren. There’s hesitant optimism that when this is over, we’ll be able to re-open and bring back the teams that have sweat and bled for us for years. As hours tick by we continue to see the news of this pandemic spread, those conversation begin to include “change,” “who knows,” it’ll be different,” and acknowledgement that whenever this ends – whether weeks or months – life, the industry, consumer habits, and work forces will all be different.

If there is ever a set of people that were built for this challenge, it’s the people in the restaurant industry. Let’s be real: this industry is the biggest collection of ingenious, adaptable, scrappy bootstrappers ever. If there’s someone that’s going to figure all of this out, it’s us. Delivery has sprung up almost everywhere. Those that were already in the meal transportation streams are busier than ever. Others are copying and making it work. I’ve seen bike deliveries popping up in bigger cities. It’s really helped that in many states, like my home Virginia, have allowed package beer and wine to be sold take out/delivery as well helping to boost the revenue of those trying to scrape it together. Some localities are even allowing our partners at local wineries, breweries, and distilleries deliver straight to the consumer, proving necessity is always the mother of invention (or de-regulation). If you’re in VA, call my friends at Devil’s Backbone, or in Buffalo, NY, hit up my brother Chad Zappia for some Big Ditch Brews!

Delivery was an easy pivot for most, surely. But wow! What other amazing new ventures I’ve seen. My friend’s down at Walter’s in SE DC have been putting together CSA boxes of produce, seafood, and more as they’ve been partnering up with their distributors to move fresh product before it spoils. What a phenomenal idea for the apartment dwelling community of SE DC – a quick, socially distant walk to the corner sports bar for a packed box of fresh produce! I’ve seen the same from others – my long-time best friend Bryce called me after delivering fresh whole beef tenderloins to a regular customer of his Eddie V’s in Charlotte. My social feeds on other platforms have been inundated with posts of my guerrilla restaurant warrior friends making it work however they have to. Hustlers will always hustle.

And that is why I’m positive we make a hard rebound out of this thing. I’m talking stronger, better, faster, more efficient, and better tasting across the board. As this pandemic settles its grip on us, it’s providing an unprecedented opportunity for us to evaluate what’s important to us as a society and we’d me remiss if we don’t do the same in our industry. Great leaders will ensure we are ready when it’s time to flip the lights on and fire up the grills. Aces will be in places, bars stocked, and line checks complete. At the end of the day, my grandfather was right (as usual). People always have to eat. Right now, they can’t eat out, but we will be back and so will they.