When the city of Chicago announced in March that there would be a city-wide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurants had no choice but to close down businesses which have affected a lot of restaurants. This includes Byron’s Hot Dogs which has had to deal with the struggle of trying to keep their business afloat.
From the very beginning, Byron’s was giving the option to either remain open for in-person dining or only have people order their food through Uber Eats or GrubHub because Byron’s is considered a fast food restaurant and because of that the owners and the employees both agreed to stay open to in-person dining to which they agreed to stay open.
Betsy DeVito, who is one of the co-owners of Byron’s explains why she, her husband, and the rest of the employees agreed to stay open during a pandemic.
“Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that some restaurants had the opportunity of staying open and because of the type of restaurant that we would be considered,” Betsy DeVito said. “We had the opportunity to remain open and we chose to stay open so that way we would not be negatively affected.”
But while they remained open to people who want to get a quick bit to eat. They still noticed that their business was struggling than in previous years during pre pandemic years.
Dan DeVito, who is a co-owner of Byron’s and also the husband of Betsy DeVito talked about what is causing their business to struggle even though they were still open.
“The biggest problem that we have currently is the fact that not a lot of people are coming into our building to buy food and we have not seen a huge increase in pick-up orders which has caused our business to lose money, unfortunately.” Dan DeVito said.
They have made sure though to protect themselves and their customers from getting COVID-19 by installing plexiglass in between the employees and the customers while also requiring them to war masks to reduce transition of the virus.
But Adrian Gonzalez, who is an employee at Byron’s is not convinced that the equipment that they have will protect him from him getting it and passing it on to his family.
“To be honest with you, I am not so sure that I am protected from getting the virus in this building,” Adrian Gonzalez said. “I’m not so worried about me getting it but rather I am more worried about my family because my mom and dad live with me and both of them have compromised immune systems and if they get this thing then it could end up killing them.”
While this pandemic has taken a toll on the DeVitos restaurant. They both remain very optimistic that their restaurant is going to end up not closing this year and to get back to their normal business routine.
“While we have struggled throughout the pandemic, we are 100% confident that we will get through it because we have gotten a lot of money from the city of Chicago and we do expect business to once again pick up after everyone get’s their COVID-19 vaccines.”
