Mondays with Mike: Be good and we can have nice things

Behave, everybody!

I think we’ve mentioned Half Sour, our neighborhood restaurant-tavern, more than once here. It’s become our new local—at least when we could have a local.

While I was in the hospital, Beth ordered takout from Half Sour fairly often, thanks to all of you who treated us with gift cards! After I was released from the COVID hotel and certified disease free, I was able to do pickup duty, too. It was fun to see the owners and check in on how they were doing — through a takeout window — even if we all wore masks. A life-size cutout of Mayor Lighfoot was there at the window just to make sure we were being good.

Well, it’s been open for service since early June now. And it’s been nice to enjoy semi-normal times there since things opened up. First it was outdoor patio plus tables next to big windows only. Now it’s 25% occupancy, including sparce seating at the bar.

We’re taking a calculated risk when we go there — but it doesn’t feel like it, because their staff is terrific about wearing masks, making sure customers wear masks (anyone who walks in without one gets a free new mask!), and generally doing what we all should be doing. The windows are wide open whenever possible, and, like I said. it’s nice to every once in a while feel just a little like we did back in say, 2019.

Last week, though, there was a scare. I got a text from a friend saying Half Sour was closed — did I know anything? Welp. Here’s a classic, maddening story from 2020:

One of the owners had to go out of town because of a family emergency. So, a friend, who is not an employee, came in for about four hours on a Saturday. She served as hostess during brunch and wore a mask the entire time.

Last week she started having some symptoms and got tested. It came back positive.

So, Half Sour closed for two days, hired an industrial cleaning crew, and paid $150 a pop for testing 15 employees who worked that day. They also put the news out on the Half Sour social media outlets to make customers who were there that day.

Happily, none of the employees’ tests came back positive. Oh, and on her second testing, the original person who tested positive tested…negative. The first one was a false positive.

The bad news is our favorite local lost two days of business and a chunk of change on testing. (Also bad news: really, we still have to pay for tests? What a country.)

The good news is Half Sour is back open, and they continue to model responsible behavior. For them, it’s not a calculated risk to let people in, it’s survival.

If everyone is as responsible as they are, Illinois can stay open—and so can Half Sour.

Wear the mask, wash the hands.