Relics of the Pandemic

We were out to eat last night at a place we’ve been to a couple of times. I noticed a sign attached to the front counter saying something about if you stand up, put on a mask. And, on the floor, was something about maintaining six feet of distance. The mask sign was covered up by a couple of display items so it was only partially readable.

Makes me wonder if it was just too much work to take them down or if the people who run the restaurant just forgot they were there. I think most of those type of signs have been wiped from existence but, like this place, they hang around. Not that they were enforcing anything because I stood up to go get some napkins and nobody said anything and the servers weren’t masked. Just haven’t gotten around to removing the signs I guess.

It did bring back memories of the silly things we were forced to do. The whole concept of eating in a restaurant where you had to mask if you stood up but were fine taking it off at your table. Future generations will probably think we didn’t understand anything about viruses. Like they only could live in the air where you were standing and not around your table.

I remember one place which had a seating area you accessed by climbing a few stairs. So, when you were sitting, you were actually at the level of people standing by the door. But I guess viruses don’t travel beyond the front door so it was all good. You could try to argue that maybe that was just to reduce risk but it was just pure silliness that the restaurants had to do in order to stay open. 

After dinner, we went to what used to be our favorite ice cream place because my wife wanted their peppermint stick and that only comes out around Christmas. When this place reopened after the pandemic, they stuck with carry out only meaning you either ate your ice cream on the one bench just outside the store with a pleasant view of the parking lot or in your car. We had all but stopped going because it just wasn’t the same experience.

But it looks like they came to their senses because indoor seating was available again. So we could actually just sit at a little table and enjoy our ice cream rather than sitting in the car with the heat running. 

To their credit, they did keep one thing from the pandemic. When it was carry out only, they put up barriers to create a line for ordering and changed where the ordering happened so you didn’t have large crowds gathered around the front of the ice cream displays. Before the pandemic, it would usually turn into chaos with people lined up two to three deep waiting their turn. But they kept the new line so it may create some order although we’ll see what happens in the summer. 

The tables and chairs were all new and there were fewer of them but it is still better than it was before. Maybe they were waiting on them before going back to indoor seating. In any case, it is nice to see that they finally moved back to more normal operations. Certainly took long enough.