Snow lines the walkway Jan. 26 at Inclusion Coffee in downtown Arlington. The coffee shop stayed open despite inclement weather.
Despite inclement weather Monday, many local Arlington restaurants opened their doors to the community.
These restaurants provided critical food access to first responders, essential workers and residents.
Inclusion Coffee in downtown Arlington altered its business operations, such as shifts.
“We’ve actually reduced basically just to one long shift during the time of the storm,” barista Atlas Wallace said. “So we’re open from 10 to five.”
The consistency of business, however, remains the same, storm or no storm.
“The most challenging part has probably just been keeping up with the demand,” Wallace said.
She said her manager was determined to check on each employee and ask them if they were OK to work that day.
“My boss has been texting every person, basically every day, saying ‘Hey, are you comfortable coming in?’” she said.
Inclusion Coffee staying open during the winter weather was a reflection of its commitment to the community during a time when locals feel isolated.
“We try to create a community that’s welcoming and accepting and comfortable for everyone,” Wallace said.
Kayla Bajracharya, Java Lounge co-owner, said it is always a difficult decision to stay open and possibly put customers or staff at risk, but they were determined to stay open.
On Monday, Bajracharya and her husband opened the restaurant themselves, ensuring staff attendance was not mandatory.
“This is our life and our coffee shop’s our baby, so we do everything we can for it,” she said.
Restaurants that remained open took part in providing warm meals for individuals who had to go to work, like first responders.
Aziz Kobty, chef and one of the owners of Prince Lebanese Grill, said they serve meals to many workers from the hospital across the street. Kotby said he has also had firefighters and police who have come in to get a warm meal.
“These aren’t days we make money, these are days where we show up for our town,” he said.
Kobty said that in order to remain open and to ensure the safety of staff and customers, precautions were made, including salting and sanding the parking lot and making sure work is not mandatory for the staff if they feel unsafe.
“I do have employees that live in the apartments adjacent to my restaurant, people that live across the street, but our philosophy is safety first,” Kobty said.
Daniel Huynh, general manager of Kintaro Ramen, faced staffing shortages due to the employees not living close by.
“We lost half the staff who were living kind of far out,” Huynh said. “When it comes to deliveries, we lost Uber and DoorDash for about two days.”
He said the biggest obstacle was after the snow started to melt because the restaurant had a rush of customers.
“Once people weren’t afraid to drive no more, everyone came in,” Huynh said. “It felt like the whole city came in at one point.”
Kintaro split the opening and closing shifts, leaving the employees with different tasks.
“The morning shift normally comes in and makes sure everything’s set for the whole day,” Huynh said. “And when it comes to my closing crew, they come in and make sure everything is put up, clean, wiped down.”
To ensure employee safety, Huynh makes sure his employees who are within walking distance are prioritized. Those who do not live within walking distance got the accommodations needed to still come in.
“I do have a couple of employees who wanted to come in from different towns, so to fix that, we made sure they had a hotel to stay at right across the restaurant,” he said.
Huyhn said staying open during the snowstorm helped some of his employees, who relied on their income from working at the restaurant.
“I have a lot of people here who need the monthly job to work,” he shared. “They have bills to pay, family to feed, tuition to pay off, so I give them the chance to come in to work for whoever needed it.”
“I trust my staff to do it.”
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