Pour one out for McDs

Word on the street is the McDonald’s franchise store nearest to my home is inexplicably closing permanently. Quite a rapid turn, too. Today - June 23rd, the year of our lord 2024 - is the final day of operation after many decades in business. The cynical part of me thinks the workers there were equally as surprised as the general public. That is a sucky situation indeed to suddenly be out of work - and the financial security that comes with it - just like that.

I can still remember going to the Stonestown McDonald’s as a high school student. Back when a few dollars can get you quite a bit of food. These days? You’d need three of those dollars to buy just the apple pie. As much as it is lamentable to see the restaurant close down, I have to be honest: I’ve stopped patronizing that McDonald’s ever since food prices started inflating like crazy. If I’m going to spend $12 to $15 for a burger/sandwich meal, I rather go to an In-N-Out, or the Shake Shack that recently opened at the same mall.

But it seems I’m amongst the minority of price sensitive restaurant goers. The Stonestown McDonald’s remains busy, at least it looks like so every time I walk past it. If revenue isn’t the issue, then perhaps it’s the newly instated California fast-food workers minimum wage law? One month of this increase in payroll cost and the franchisee is already crying uncle? As much as it's en vogue to besmirch owners as evil, profit-hoarding fat cats, I think often times the math simply isn’t math-ing. It’s not like restaurants aren’t already infamous for ultra low margins and frequent failure.

According to this article, the owner also points finger at the Stonestown mall for the store’s demise. To put it most succinctly: the rent is too damn high. This I can definitely believe. McDonald’s would not be the first food establishment to be chased out of Stonestown due to exorbitant rent.

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Not this one, though.

Eating indoors

The verdict is in: you should definitely go one size up on the Allbirds Wool Runners shoe. After buying a pair in my typical size 9 and finding them surprisingly restrictive, a size 10 pair got delivered today. I am happy to say they fit perfectly, and finally I have a pair of Allbirds that is as comfortable as everyone raves about.

I am looking forward to breaking them in at work tomorrow.

It seems I am going to be doing lots more walking on the weekends as well. Last week, San Francisco entered the least restrictive yellow tier of California’s COVID-19 lockdown measures. This means, amongst other things, bars are allowed to open, and indoor dining increase in additional capacity. We can finally frequent our favorite bars and restaurants once more without too much hassle.

I am going to be doing a lot of that.

Obviously, one still have to be masked when indoors, which is quite interesting when it comes to eating at a restaurant. What I do is: I remain masked while sitting at the table until first of the food and or beverages arrive. Then it is mask off for the duration until the check is signed off and I am ready to leave. It makes no sense to keep putting the mask off and on in between bites or sips. Also, not very sanitary.

To be honest, being fully vaccinated with the best vaccine available - Pfizer - I really don’t care to wear a mask at all. The worst I’ll experience from COVID now is just a mild flu. It’s because of the rules in place that I even wear one, such as heading indoors in public spaces, or visiting a place of commerce. I would be perfectly fine with going maskless and live life as I did before the pandemic. Isn’t that the point of vaccination?

I think we’ll all get there soon enough. San Francisco is doing great: half of all eligible people are fully vaccinated. We are back, baby!

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Brick building.

Eating out

Good news: outdoor dinning has resumed in California. Does this mean we’ve turned a corner from the worst of the pandemic? Who knows. The conspiracy is that Governor Newson reopened eat-in dining (albeit outdoors, obviously) to fend off the recall attacks. That COVID cases - especially in Southern California - are still bad enough that people really shouldn’t be congregating together.

It’s a very tough situation. The restaurant industry has been utterly decimated by the coronavirus. The ability to serve food outdoors is a slim lifeline against going out of business. Shutting down outdoor dining isn’t because eating outside is particularly dangerous vis a vis catching the virus. It’s about preventing what comes next, after the meal is ate. To stop those who aren’t likely to simply go home afterwards from hanging out further into the night.

Some people are saying that going out is the less of two evils compared to hanging out privately. I didn’t realize a significant amount of people are meeting up privately on a regular basis. I certainly haven’t: my small bubble of people I’ve seen since the start of all of this have not changed. And it will remain that way until we’ve got the vaccine needle twice over.

I saw on twitter a clip of restaurants in Beverly Hills with absolutely packed outdoor dinning areas on a Friday evening. I don’t blame those people at all. Coming up on the one year anniversary of this whole mess, we are completely tired of it. The vaccine is showing the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and we simply cannot get there fast enough. After a hard week of work, I too want to break bread with friends at a restaurant. So I get why folk are going out to eat soon as it was allowed.

It’s good for the restaurants to get some much-needed income, too.

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Zetto!

What will I do

One thing to think about while we are all effectively locked inside our homes is what our lives will look like once we are no longer restricted to our residences. For sure, by that time the coronavirus situation will still be far form over, but at the very least, the many activities we are used to doing before the virus outbreak is going to be available to us again. The question is, then: will we go back to them enthusiastically?

Let’s say the local comedy club reopens: are you going to go? Will you risk being in a room with over a hundred strangers sharing the same air in a tightly packed space? What about concerts? Plays? Theatre? I personally won’t be patronizing those sort of entertainment venues anytime soon, even with the so-called social distancing protocols in affect. Is the inside of an airplane any safer with all of the middle seats unoccupied? It sure doesn’t appear to be.

The more intrepid of us will of course have no qualms about going back out to places and being amongst the crowd as soon as the authorities would allow it. It’s not because these type of people want to die, but rather they believe they are immune to the disease, that they’re healthy enough and well enough that COVID-19 would be ineffective towards them. It’s the same mental power that compels a solider to charge into battle: they seriously do not believe they will be the ones to die. These people know and understand the danger, but think themselves lucky they won’t catch the virus under any circumstances.

I definitely do not have that line of thinking; even after the shelter-in-place order is over, I’ll still be extra cautious about going outside and doing various activities. One thing I really do miss however is seeing my friends in person, and sharing a lovely meal at a restaurant. If there’s one thing I’m eagerly waiting to do again, it’s dining out with the people I care out.

We’ve got 2/3rds of a month to go, as of this writing. God speed.

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Might I recommend some reading during this time of quarantine.