When I was 19-years-old, I told my father I wanted to open up a restaurant and fill it with all of my grandmother’s traditional, Italian recipes. My father thought I was crazy. “Go out and find a real job,” he said to me with his Italian accent. Owning a restaurant was my dream and I wouldn’t give it up. After much convincing, my father agreed to help me start my restaurant.
At first, owning a restaurant was extremely difficult. It consisted of long nights. But, I was determined. After several years, my restaurant became one of the most popular and busiest in the Chicagoland area. Every Saturday, we had people waiting to get a table. Like I predicted, everyone loved my grandmother’s recipes.
Back in March, I was told to close my restaurant due to Covid-19. I knew closing my restaurant was important. We had to “slow the spread.” Got it. I was happy to close. Unfortunately, the stay at home order lasted much longer than anticipated. My restaurant was closed for weeks on end. It was so frustrating.
Finally, I was able to open my restaurant for outdoor dining in June. We had customers calling us at all hours of the day to get a reservation at my restaurant. People were excited to be able to get out after months of staying inside. I finally saw a glimmer of hope.
As the weather began to change, less and less people began to come to our restaurant. A lot of people were skeptical to eat indoors and didn’t want to dine outside due to the cold weather. Again, I was frustrated.
It was a huge disappointment when all indoor dining was shut down when the Covid-19 numbers began to spike again.
To encourage people to dine outside, my staff and I put in heaters on our patio. Still, our customers stopped coming.
After putting my life savings into opening my restaurant, I saw the end of my livelihood and my dream.
However, my customers don’t want to see my restaurant fail. For the past two months, our takeout orders have been doing excellent. Although we’re not making as much as we did during the summer months, we’re doing okay. I’m hopeful that as soon as the weather changes, we will be able to open our restaurant for outdoor dining and we will boom again.
2020 has been a shitty year. We can all hope that this madness ends in 2021 and that all small businesses are able to survive in the midst of these tough lockdowns. We can only pray.
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