Feeling Helped
During the era of Covid-19, the uncertainty of the future is sadly a much too common theme among workers.
At Liberty Food and Wine Exchange, on Sierra St., which bills itself as an artisan eatery, bar, catering company and wholesale distributor, management initially wanted to make sure employees knew they weren’t an afterthought despite all the financial struggles for everyone.
The downtown neighborhood business handed out food and also resources for employees to try and stay afloat.
“They helped us like sit down,” Bradley said. “And lent us a bunch of laptops so, if we wanted to sign up for unemployment there, we could. Or if like someone wasn't able to get access to a laptop, as they could just do it there. That was like mid-March, like the day after restaurants shut down, that was their initial response.”
Bradley, who has been with Liberty since February 2019, said extra precautions were also taken during the re-opening process.
“Coming back from quarantine; they waited like an extra week. I want to say after restaurants were allowed to open back up, just so that they were able to see how other businesses were doing it. So they could be, they could do it the right way, I guess they want to make sure everything was safe for everybody.”
Liberty has been heavily promoting its online ordering options, like here on its Facebook page.
Adapting to Fewer In Person Customers and the Perils of COVID-19
Despite re-opening for dine-in, Liberty witnessed a lack of in person costumers.
“At the start, like, it was definitely a hit.... It was just really, really slow going,” Bradley said of the initial re-opening. “Our hours of operation used to be 11 to 9, and then we were just so slow and dead in the mornings. And I think we were losing money in the mornings. And so we changed our entire hours of operation. We started to get creative...on the weekends, Liberty got approval from the city, and so we have some tables out there that help to maintain social distancing, then that makes it a little more normal for everybody. Like the restaurants are busy and vibrant again on the weekends.”
There are new challenges for servers though. Whether it’s people refusing to obey county guidelines or having to interact with a myriad of different people, Bradley confesses his fear of the virus.
“I’m around people without masks on all the time,” Bradley said. I'm the only one that's wearing a mask when I go to a table, and I'm just surrounded by like, let's say six people, and I talked to all of them in close quarters. I'm more worried about getting older people sick, so I try not to visit grandparents or my parents too often.”
Despite the number of cases still high in Washoe County, Bradley says he’s noticed people slacking off in terms of their discipline. “When we first opened up, people were totally wearing masks,” he said. “They were sitting down and continuing to wear their mask, only taking it off to eat and trying to be as safe as possible. And now some people just really don't care. And so they'll try to come in the restaurant without a mask or go to the bathroom without a mask, or try to talk to other tables. We have a six-person limit at a table per Governor Sisolak’s orders, and people just don't want to listen to that. They'll get mad at us for trying to enforce the rules that we need to follow to stay open. . . . It's difficult because we are trying to find a balance between accommodating all of our guests and also adhering to the rules that we have to. And sometimes they clash, and it gets a little difficult, but overall it's been pretty good, and most people are very understanding.”
Through the uncertainty, Bradley remains positive. He has faith in Liberty’s response and their ability to persevere through the unknown of the “Covid era.” Above all, Bradley admires the community that Liberty has built within itself while also attempting to give back to the city of Reno.
“Liberty's response is very community-oriented,” he said. “They wanted to give the employees food first and then second, they had a program, Delivering with Dignity Reno/Sparks, going on that if you're in the industry and you're struggling, you can just like come to Liberty, where we would just hand out free meals to people that needed it. So, I feel like it's just like pursuing more in the community, I guess. And like having each other's back.”