Tag: restaurant

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A squareish hand-painted metal sign with the words 'Coffee,' 'Espresso' and 'Wifi' stacked vertically. The letters and border are black on a bright yellow background. The sign hangs from an ornamented wrought-iron-style stand above a planter and is viewed diagonally from above. Between 'Coffee' and 'Espresso' there's a drawing of a cup and saucer with steam rising from it.

When I took this photo back in 2016, it was a combination coffee/Chinese food restaurant: they sold coffee in the mornings and Chinese food for lunch and dinner. The owner had previously run a separate coffee shop (The Bean Counter, IIRC) in the same shopping center, then combined the two businesses to save on rent. It was one of our go-to Chinese takeout sources, and I’d sometimes grab coffee in the mornings if I was in the area or on my way somewhere in that direction.

The old coffee location sat vacant for a few years until a bakery (with coffee on the side) moved in. Amusingly, the bakery — with is still there today — also chose a pun-based name: Redondough (as in Redondo Beach).

In early 2020 — and I mean early, either January or February — they were offered a really nice buyout price by someone who wanted to turn-key convert it overnight to a Hawaiian restaurant. I imagine when mid-March rolled around and the initial Covid lockdown started, they were extremely relieved to have accepted it!

I never did get around to trying the Hawaiian place, even for takeout. Eventually it was taken over by a Hawaiian-style fast food chain.

Photo taken February 27, 2016 and originally posted on my Instagram account a few days later with this title, but no commentary.

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The other day I grabbed a coffee and muffin while out walking, and found an out-of-the-way outdoor place where I could unmask and eat without being near anyone else.

It was weird! It felt like I was getting away with something. This sort of thing used to be normal, but now it isn’t… and that’s weird too!

I haven’t eaten at a restaurant in nearly a year. Not even outside on a patio when health orders have allowed it. (Though I have bought take-out.) This was only the second time since last March that I’ve eaten anything away from home except the occasional travel mug of coffee in the car. Not that I bother with that very often, since I rarely drive farther than the grocery store. I’ve even stopped carrying my Epi-Pen everywhere. I know I’m not going to eat until I get back.

I think the last time I ate at a restaurant was when I went out to lunch with some co-workers the first week of March, and we were talking about whether we wanted to switch to working remotely early, before the order came down. We knew it was coming sooner or later.

As it turned out, all of us who were there ended up spending just one more day onsite. The other two both started working remotely the next week, and I came down with the flu that weekend (at least I think it was the flu) and didn’t recover until the office closed.

I’m still at the same job, but that office? Gone. They’re moving to a new location for when onsite office work is a thing again. I haven’t been to the new office either, because it’s not ready yet, and everything’s in storage for now, presumably including the clutter I would have taken care of if I hadn’t been sick when the work-from-home order came down.

I hope I rinsed out my coffee mug.

And didn’t leave any food at my desk.

But hey, at least I know I didn’t need all of those hand-written notes!

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Sign saying Open for Takeout on the sidewalk

I’ve been seeing a lot of these signs in front of restaurants when I go walking in the neighborhood. Most restaurants in the area seem to be trying to keep going as all-takeout/delivery, at least for now. A couple of small chains have closed some locations and are continuing to operate take-out from others. The county “Safer at Home” order has been extended through May 15, so I guess we’ll see how many places can weather that long.

Restaraunt take-out window with sign: Food and Beer To GoThough I’ve got to say, I’m still not used to restaurants being able to offer beer to go.

Most people have been really good at maintaining social distancing while out. The group in the distance seemed to all be one family.

Except for runners. Runners passing me from behind, where I can’t see them to move out of the way myself, have a 50/50 track record of detouring around vs. just zooming past me at a distance of a foot. Maybe they think they can outrun the virus, but if they’re the ones who have it (asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic), it certainly doesn’t help the people they’re rushing past.

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Panera restaurant with a bunch of standard sheets of paper forming the giant word OPEN.

More scenes from a pandemic shutdown: Panera really wants you to know they’re open! (California is currently limiting all restaurants to take-out/delivery only as part of the attempt to limit coronavirus spread.)

They also had a sign propped up in their delivery van window pointing out that they’re selling bread, eggs and dairy — all categories that grocery stores have been facing shortages of. (Now we see the downsides of just-in-time supply chains: they don’t adjust very well to panic buying.) They are a bakery as well as a restaurant, after all, and it makes sense that they could pivot to selling ingredients.