Zachary’s making adjustments amid COVID-19

COLUMBUS, (WCBI) —  The saying goes, in life difficult situations can either make or break you.

And COVID-19 has been that difficult situation for restaurants across the country.

At Zachary’s, it almost seems like they can’t catch a break. A fire last year and then this year, COVID-19.

‘The hardest thing was having to work harder and make less,” said owner Doug Pellum.

Pellum said he has used the quarantine time to get back to the drawing board, and re-imagine how he could serve his loyal customers.

“We’ve had to go out and find other ways to get people in,” he said. “Things we’ve done is add ice cream for kids we’ve added cotton candy, snow cones. We got daiquiris to go now. Quarantine with this whole deal that we had to do, comes added cost. The gloves that you see all of our employees wear the mask that you see are employees wear. I spent $2,600 the other day for gloves.”

Pellum said this time around, all options to gain extra revenue are on the table.

“Every single day we are thinking what can we do to get that competitive edge,” he said. “What can we do that other people aren’t doing. We got to come up with new ideas we got to be open-minded and think outside the box.”

Employee Heather Ford, said COVID-19 has opened her eyes up to a lot things.

“Patience a lot of patience,” she said. “And that sometimes you think is this overkill are we doing this for no reason. But then you have to realize that there are vulnerable people out there and that if you could protect one person from getting sick by something that you do that it’s worth it.”

Pellum said the restaurant will continue to have COVID-19 precautions in place for the foreseeable future.