WISE UP, EAT AT PETE’S SINCE 1994 Come where everybody knows your name! A DALLAS LANDMARK! Come where everybody knows your name! ST. PETE’S DANCING MARLIN Bar & Grill Deep Ellum • 2730 Commerce • 214-698-1511 www.stpetesdancingmarlin.com INTRODUCE YOUR DALLAS FORK City of Ate from p13 12817 Preston Road, Suite 105 972-392-0190 indiapalacedallas.com soon reopen with a new energy and menu full of smash burgers. Should be fun be- cause, as they like to say, this ain’t their first rodeo. ▼ COVID ‘KICK IN THE GRAPES’ TO THE TASTE OF NEW YORK! NY DELICATESSEN RESTAURANT & BAKERY 5 DFW LOCATIONS • CINDISNYDELI.COM ENTER TO WIN TICKETS FROM D dallasobserver.com/free/hippocampus Come watch all the football action with us! THE LEGEND LIVES ON CHECK OUT OUR NEW KITCHEN DAILY BUFFET STADIUM BUFFET MON-FRI 11AM-2PM MONDAY-FRIDAY 4PM-10PM Sat 11aM-10pM • Sun 12pM-10pM 14 10250 Shady Trail • 214.358.5511 • babydolls.com 14 THE LEGEND LIVES ON ® taurants essentially beg for forgiveness dur- ing the first few days (or weeks) of opening. Training wheels, if you will. No one does a soft “lockdown” though, at A least not before 2021 that is. This term re- lates to a voluntary suspension of business, or any activity, as it can also relate to individ- uals too. Restaurants, already beleaguered by a tight labor market, are increasingly hav- ing to shut down for days at a time as staff fall ill and they can no longer operate effi- ciently or safely. “We really had no choice when it came to the decision of closing,” Kim Finch of Thunderbird Station said after closing on Dec. 18. “We were already understaffed, so when half the staff is out sick there wasn’t enough people to work to stay open. Out of everyone sick it was a mix of flu, strep and COVID.” As we previously reported, res- taurants in Houston, New York City and Philadelphia are making similar choices to close in what is typically one of the busiest times of the year for the service industry. The biggest difference between these voluntary closures versus mandatory shut- downs in 2020 is money; there are no pay- check protection programs or grants for these businesses now. “Yeah, it really sucked to have to close when we did. We were just starting to get a little busier with holiday traffic. And we re- ally needed it because it’s still been kinda slow. Plus this has been some pretty epic pa- tio weather,” Finch said. Amor Y Queso, the charcuterie and cheese peddler in Deep Ellum, also had to shut down this week. A Facebook post on Tuesday showed the frustration of having to cancel business at the end of the year. FACING AN ALREADY-TIGHT LABOR MARKET, RESTAURANTS ARE HAVING TO SHUTTER AS COVID, FLU AND STREP SIDELINE STAFF. BY LAUREN DREWES DANIELS soft opening is a common term in the restaurant industry that refers to a period of time when new res- Steven Monacelli Thunderbird Station had to shutter over the holidays due to sick staff. The MOST on brand ending to the year. Omicron is in the building, so we are OUT. The very last thing that I would’ve ever wanted to do was have to cancel New Year’s Eve. To let anybody down is the absolute HARDEST part of this ... This is an absolute kick in the grapes for us, y’all. Uchiaba closed on Sunday and Homewood is having to close on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. In late December, the upscale restaurant and bar Uchiba voluntarily closed for several days after staff tested positive. Homewood closed for two days. The uptown bar Alexandre’s took it a step further. According to a Facebook post on Jan. 1, after a staff member tested positive before a shift and despite spending “tens of thousands in mitigation infrastructure, masks, and tests, it unfortunately is simply not enough to secure the high-risk environ- ment of a bar against a virus as transmissible as the Omicron variant.” The staff voted on a proposal to shut down the bar for the remainder of January. The post explained that the terms call for workers to be placed on paid sick leave for the entirety of the shutdown, noting that “no one signed up for an infection as a condition of employment. Sara Zhan at The Atlantic recently ex- plored how soft lockdowns and our volun- tary actions can act as a brake on rising cases but can have a lingering impact, “Whatever the effect of a soft lockdown on the spread of Omicron, it will affect the economy too. Even if customers remain willing to go out, businesses will have to close when too many employees end up sick or get stuck in quar- antine.” Thunderbird Station was finally able to reopen on Dec. 28. “We wanted to make sure we got the remainder of the staff tested be- fore reopening,” Finch says. Amor y Queso will “be out until everyone is COVID negative and past required quar- antine days.” They’re also issuing refunds for all the business they had on the books for the end of the year. According to The New York Times, Dallas County has seen a 341% increase in new daily cases over the past two weeks. From Dec. 23 to Dec. 27, the average number of daily cases climbed from 618 to 961; that’s up from 111 on Dec. 1. Contemporary Indian Food WE’RE OPEN FOR DINE IN, TO-GO, CURBSIDE AND DELIVERY! JANUARY 6–12, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | dallasobserver.com
