Food Service Employees Face a Close Risk

An employee at 101 Taiwanese Cuisine helps two people looking at the menu

One person stands at the drive-thru pickup window of Beto’s Mexican Food to order while another person waits a few feet behind at his car.

Two Jimmy John’s employees wearing face masks head outside. One enters his car for a delivery and the other walks under a Jimmy John’s canopy to help a customer parked on the curbside.

A KFC employee stands outside the front door of the establishment before his shift.

PHO Cali restaurant closed with an empty lobby.

With closed lobbies, people order or pick up takeout as food service industry workers face risk in serving customers at drive-thrus, small lobbies, and pickup counters. Fast food employees, a vulnerable group, have struggled and protested to gain protections at work from wearing face masks to paid leave for testing and sickness. Business for restaurants has changed as some encounter less demand, can’t adapt locations for takeout, close for safety, and for those still open, change business inside as they try to serve customers safely.

Some of the small local restaurants in Reno, Beto’s Mexican Food and 101 Taiwanese Cuisine post in windows their open business and flyers for delivery orders through apps like Doordash and Grubhub. At Beto’s Mexican Food they provide service through only a drive thru window but a man walks up to the window to order. Another man waits behind him from a couple of feet but they will both have talked to the same employee within a matter of minutes and have no way to wash their hands while in the parking lot. At 101 Taiwanese Cuisine, two people stand by the door looking at the menu posted while standing with less than six feet of an employee who helps them. In order to get help with the menu, they all must stand close in order to effectively communicate about what the woman points at. Another local restaurant, PHO Cali, located in Downtown on Virginia, appears closed during regular business hours and with an empty lobby on a Friday afternoon.

The smaller local restaurants have approached business differently but for fast food establishments, many of them have remained open. West of Downtown on Keystone, several chains such as McDonalds, Wendy’s, KFC, Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, and Little Caesar’s share the same look of banners stating open business and signs announcing closed lobbies and promoting the drive-thrus. Jimmy John’s, a walk-in sandwich chain across from the University of Nevada, Reno, adapts a “drive-up” drive-thru, set up with a canopy tent on the sidewalk for people to stop and wait for orders. A Jimmy John’s employee enters his car to make a delivery while another approaches someone parked by the tent waiting to order. While employees of other locations and fast food chains who already have built-in drive-thrus can stay inside the building throughout the entire transaction, this particular Jimmy John’s location is uniquely vulnerable as employees have to leave the building to take orders, increasing their points of contact during transactions.

Even though stay at home orders, self-isolation, and social distancing practices continue as measures for flattening the curve, states consider reopening, and according to cell phone data less people are following stay at home orders. Workers in the food service industry will continue to be at risk as state governments discuss the consequences and potential risks of reopening that will affect everyone.