When my partner, Lily Dallow, and I were trying to pull together ideas for a story we started to think about how we’ve been affected during these challenging times. I thought about how my older brother, who is the head banquet chef at the Hyatt Manchester in San Diego, has been out of work since the start of the pandemic. The hotel originally had a staff of 1200 people but has now been forced to cut down to 32 total employees.
Restaurants run on thin margins and can sometimes take months or even years to break even, resulting in this higher rate of permanent closures. Abrupt closures, inconsistent reopenings, changes in public health guidance for operations, and other state-mandated orders have pushed the foodservice industry to the brink.
That’s why when we heard from a close friend that a new restaurant was opening in downtown SLO that we had a story on our hands, and Jason Joseph had a story to tell. The now part-owners of their restaurant, Hoagies, are getting ready to open their newest location in downtown SLO during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We never took the pandemic lightly, but we were never going to let it define our community or our business. Our business model has always been that we love on you and interact with our customers; while we can’t do that now, we can still feed you like family,” Jason Joseph, part-owner of Hoagies said.
Modified menus, a bare-bones staff, and the seemingly gargantuan task of attracting business in a time of such grave uncertainty are all factors in a new food and beverage operation. It’s probably an understatement to say that the hurdles facing new business ventures at this time are significant, and these obstacles are notwithstanding typical service kinks and communication difficulties between the back of house and front of house staff. We found these adjustments to be the difference in staying afloat during the pandemic.
This experience, though very different from what we had envisioned, actually taught us things we never really thought we’d need to learn, “like how restaurants have to operate and the tedious process they have to go through during these times in order to open a new location,” Dallow said. “Overall, I’m extremely thankful for it, and I think Patrick and I were able to adapt efficiently and use all the skills we’ve learned throughout our time at Cal Poly.”
I think the thing that sticks with me from the interview is the owner’s positivity during a time where it is easy to be down. They have a passion for interacting with their community through food, and that’s why the story wrote itself. Opening this new location in SLO was the end product of years of hard work and sacrifice, while still never straying away from their Hoagies vibe. =
“We just open up every day, with smiles on our faces, reggae music, and those same $2 Red Stripes that have been here since the beginning,” Joseph said.