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Months of Coping With Covid-19 Leaves Restaurants Unsure About The Future

"Busy Waiter" by Ralph and Jenny | Licensed under CC BY 2.0

Running a restaurant is a risky business in the best of times.  According to the National Restaurant Association, during the pandemic, some 90,000 restaurants in the U.S. closed permanently.

  

Here in the Land of Enchantment, the New Mexico Restaurant Associationestimates that out of 3500 pre-pandemic restaurants, 300 have closed their doors.  As restaurant capacity limits were lifted, some restaurants appeared to be thriving while others still struggled.  Currently, the number of out-of-work restaurant workers has shrunk by more than 70 percent, as measured by unemployment insurance filings.  

Carol Wight, executive director of the New Mexico Restaurant Association, spoke with KSFR about how our state's restaurant industry has survived during the pandemic.  Rob Day, owner of the Santa Fe Bar and Grill, added his insights on coping with COVID.

Mary Lou Cooper reports on consumer issues for KSFR as well as on politics and elder affairs. She has worked for the U.S. Congress as well as for the Nevada and Tennessee legislatures, and remains a political junkie. She worked many years for an association of Western state legislatures and was a contributor to “Capitol Ideas,” a national magazine about state government. In 2016 Cooper received a public service award from the New Mexico Broadcasting Association for her KSFR story on Internet romance scams. She has received journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and from the National Federation of Press Women. She grew up in Oak Ridge, TN and received her BA from Emory University in Atlanta and her MA from the University of Texas Austin. She also holds fiction and screenwriting certificates from the University of Washington.
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