General Discussion

...we haven't eaten in a restaurant here since the pandemic kicked in. The bigger issue, other than safety first, is that this town has a chronic problem with food preparation staff. It's a combination of people with drug and alcohol problems, as well as "mostly" younger people who get a chip on their shoulder about working for minimum wage.

I've had a number of clients in town and they've all told the same tale:

1). FINDING good employees is tough
2). RETAINING good employees is tougher
3). It costs them TIME and MONEY to TRAIN employees and in many instance it adds up to wasted time and money

...we have restaurants here like Hardees (the East Coast equivalent of Carl's Jr). PRE-PANDEMIC, we'd go there maybe once a month for a burger and fries. In this town, in the realm of fast food, theirs was the best. Then the food was badly prepared...limp fries GLISTENING with oil that wasn't drained, greasy burgers SWIMMING in mayo. At the time, 2 meals in this place was something like 20 bucks. And, over the course of about 8 months, we DID give them "three strikes." The last time was so bad that I should have demanded a refund but I was so disgusted with the inedible food that I just threw it all in the trash without taking a bite.

Same thing happened to the local McDonald's...not as bad as Hardees, more a case of room-temperature food that clearly should have been thrown out, not served.