The Way We Work Now
I Work at a Restaurant in Florida Where Customers Think the Coronavirus Is a Hoax
The Way We Work Now is a series chronicling how people’s lives and careers have fundamentally changed because of the pandemic.
Justin is a twentysomething server in a conservative pocket of Palm Beach, Florida. He spoke to Mai Tran about returning to work in a state where Covid-19 cases have topped 870,000.
I started working at a family-owned bar and restaurant in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the beginning of March. When I got there it was already in the “we don’t really know what’s going to happen” stage. In mid-April, we got the order to go into lockdown, and by May 8 or 9, we went right back to indoor dining. Inside the restaurant, we were doing half capacity, so every other table was available, but outside was pretty much full capacity. Customers weren’t allowed to dine indoors without masks, but there weren’t any restrictions outside. The restaurant added four or five new outdoor tables to try to make up for the indoor losses.
