Restaurants are trying to deal with the stay at home order
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - Restaurants are used to competing for diners throughout the year, but due to COVID-19, local restaurants are just trying to stay afloat.
"Being in this community and our kids growing up in this community, it's a difficult deal right now," Owner of The Firehouse Grill, Kevin La Fleur said.
For Firehouse, the stay at home order will shut their doors for now. Takeout orders would not simply give them enough money for their light bill.
"For example, we're shutting down and we'll throw away probably about $7,000 worth of products in the dumpsters because we can't sell it," La Fleur said. "We can't give it away because of the health department. We can't do anything. So what we don't have we're gonna throw away and it's a sad deal."
Some business are able to stay open and provide takeout service as usual like Lucy's Pizzeria.
"We always stay pretty heavy with our takeout deliveries," Manager at Lucy's Pizzeria, Max Henderson said. "It's been nice because we do a lot of like cross-training. So a lot of our servers that are now going to be out of work, do have an opportunity to cook, to deliver. So really right now we're just doing our best to keep everyone afloat."
Jalisco's Mexican Restaurant has also shifted its focus to deliver via Doordash and GrubHub.
"It's really sad," Server at Jalisco's, Jazmin Castellon said. "We're used to like having people here all the time. We usually stay pretty busy throughout the year just because of the location. We're by the river, we get a lot of people driving through for business and it's just stays pretty busy but right now it's just been very slow. It's been rough."
One thing all three local restaurants said is that they believe in the community to help them out.
"Hard is losing my son to cancer and my wife having cancer at the same time," La Fleur said. "That's hard. It is hard for me. This shelter in place and whatever is going to be difficult, but we'll recover if we're not shut down for too long."
