Our current state of lock down amid the global coronavirus pandemic is affecting businesses across the world with restaurants being one of the hardest hit.
Most restaurants are now offering take-out services with staff facing the public every day so freshly-cooked meals can be handed to customers through their car windows.
But in Louisiana one restaurant owner opens her doors every day but just for two customers.
For the last two years Bill and Ruth Jordan have eaten lunch at MePa’s Diner in Central. Routine is important for Ruth because she has dementia.
“It’s important we do a lot of the same things,” Bill said as per ABC News. “Otherwise, she gets confused.”
Ruth wakes up at the same time, eats the same breakfast, and eats the same ham and cheese omelet at MePa’s for lunch every day. And every day owner Melissa Dykes joins the couple for a Gospel song.
Melissa has been serving up delicious meals to her community for the last 8 years and says she couldn’t shut her doors to the Jordans.
When the couple arrive at the same time every day Melissa makes sure everything is ready for them and there is never more than 8 staff in the room, as per the governor’s orders.
“I said, ‘We’ve got to take care of Bill and Ruth. If it was my mother, I would want somebody to help,” Melissa told 13ABC News.
“My mother is out in the parking lot right now and I can’t hug her. But I can do something for Miss Ruth. It’s what my heart needed to do.”
Restaurant staff are some of the people working on the front line to deliver the comforting food we need to get through this crisis.
For many people it’s all they have to look forward to right now and it’s all of our responsibilities to do what we can to support these small businesses through such troubled times.
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