PEORIA, Ill. — It was Sun., March 15, 2020 Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a mandatory shutdown of all dine-in options until further notice.
On that day, WMBD News talked to three area people involved in the restaurant business to gauge their fears about the uncharted territory to come.
With Friday’s full reopening, we thought it would be fitting to bookend the restriction era by talking to those same restaurateurs about how their lives changed over the last 15 months.
“It felt like every day was a new day. It was one step at a time,” said Amy Eid, HR Director and wife of a co-owner of One World Cafe.
“We have a great group of employees, so we had to go at it every day, just giving it our best. But it was just a lot of unexpected twists and turns, and a lot of times we had to stop and pivot, regroup, make new plans, but we’ve made it through.
“We just kept figuring out what’s our best option right now, what’s our best option right now, and would go forward with that.”
Matt White, owner and operator of Dac’s Smokehouse in Campustown, was similarly satisfied with how his business came out of the pandemic.
“The majority of our employees are still with us. There’s turnover in restaurants, but all our key employees and full-time people are still here,” he said.
“As for the part-time, a good handful are still with us.”
Meanwhile, for Brad Gebhards, proprietor of Gebby’s and Schooner’s, it’s been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times, to paraphrase Charles Dickens.
“Business has been better than ever. It’s been insanely busy, it’s just that we have zero help,” he said.
“Most of the waitresses have been doing a great job in sticking with us, but a lot of them also show up for a week or a day or two, and then quit, and then get on unemployment.
“We have two cooks right now at Schooner’s. It’s going to be impossible for us to be fully staffed until they get rid of unemployment.”
Eid said the core One World staff has continued working.
“Actually, we’re busier now than pre-pandemic, so we’re growing our staff to pre-COVID numbers. We’re hiring to actually be at a higher capacity, staffing-wise, than where we were before,” she said.
“Last year was so scary. We didn’t know where we’d be.
“We just kept saying let’s just keep going as long as we can go, and then to be here now, to feel stronger is a really good feeling.”
Similarly, White said he came out of the pandemic stronger.
“We’ve actually been fortunate enough to open a new restaurant over in East Peoria, and so we do have even more employees since COVID started,” he said.
“We’ve made it work, we’ve got it open, we’re doing really well over there, we’re really happy to bring our food over to the Tazewell County side of the river.”
Gebhards said despite the staffing challenges he faces, he plans to keep on grinding, and there won’t be any permanent changes brought on by COVID.
“We’re going to just keep on keeping the cleanest restaurant we can, and serving the best food we can, and when the governor or whoever tells us what rules we have to follow, we’re going to do the best we can, and keep going,” he said.
“We’re focused on ourselves and not about what everybody else is doing, but we feel for everybody else.”
White said his restaurants aren’t the best examples of ones that would be affected permanently by COVID protocols, as neither employs a large wait staff.
Still, he said, the pandemic made him prouder than he already was of his restaurants’ cleanliness.
“I’ve had other people in the industry ask if we have a professional cleaning crew,” he said.
“Let me give you an example of how we know we’re doing a good job. The health department, when they get together and have their lunches, and there’d be a dozen of them, they come in here and eat lunch, and it lets us know we’re really doing a good job of keeping things sanitary.
“Because if there’s anybody who knows where not to eat, it’s the health department.”
Eid said COVID has brought one another temporary change for One World.
“Our hours are still what we call our winter hours, just until we have people on fewer doubles,” she said.
“We’re not planning to change anything as far as adding more seats indoors quite yet, until our staff is higher.
“Maybe once we get a little farther and we get a good pace, maybe we can do a nice patio party to celebrate we survived, we made it, and we’re still here.”
Full interview with Gebhards:
Full interview with White:
Full interview with Eid:
