Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Maria Panaritis feels the pain of dining establishments trying to ride a continual wave of COVID-19,

The struggles these restaurant families and workers are feeling could have been her family, she writes in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

She wonders what would have happened if the pandemic had hit in 1985, when she was a child and her immigrant parents ran Ariston Deli, a block away from the Tower Theater in Upper Darby.

“I would have become homeless. I would not be writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer. It would have been the end for me, my two sisters,” and her hardworking parents.

Then, as now, federal pandemic aid would have helped her parents survive when business plummeted.

“We all love our food people. We just don’t think about it much until they are gone,” she wrote.

“Tips and takeout will not be enough to rescue these good people. They are only the bare minimum. The solution is to love food workers the way we know we do. That means insisting that hard-hearted politicians do the same.”

Read more about the plight of local restaurants at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

You Might Also Like                            

Haverford Businesses Encourage Residents to Buy Local During the Pandemic With Gift Card Program

Restaurants Get Creative, Turn to Take-Out to Survive Pandemic

Food for Thoughtfulness: Nonprofit Helps Wayne Restaurants and the Food Insecure