“As minority business owners, we are committed to growing and helping the community surrounding us as best we can. Our location and proximity to shelters has made us build our business with the mindset focused on inclusiveness providing food to families and people at risk.

It’s sad to see many neighborhood places closing due to COVID because restaurants do much more for their communities than just serve food, there’s a chain of people behind them, and I hoped there would be more support from the governments, landlords, and the community itself for them.

After the learning process of the past few months we’ve decided to make a shift for the sake of our mental and physical health, irrespective of whether we have an event or anything, we will always give two days off to our staff.

Our industry is so cut-throat; we strive for greatness, but that pressure wears our minds and our bodies – it mentally and physically drains us. Just taking time away from it, something as simple as going on a daily walk has a drastic change on you – like night and day.

I do hope our industry gets more conscious of this. I realize we are under time pressure, and with only having half occupancy indoors, there’s pressure to make up the money we’ve lost – but is it worth it, in the long run?”