A year after buying a restaurant, how do you lay off 90 percent of your staff?

Voices of the pandemic features people in the Seattle area who are on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak. Desirae Aylesworth, owner of Wild Mountain Café in Seattle’s Crown Hill neighborhood, shares her reflections.

I never once thought of the possibility of a global pandemic becoming a reality in my lifetime, especially a year after buying a restaurant. There’s no handbook on how to navigate losing over 50 percent of your daily sales in a matter of a week’s time. Or how to lay off 90 percent of your staff, hopefully temporarily. And how to bring your two small children to work full time with your chef of a husband and just try to make it work.

Days are filled with taking orders with screaming children in the background, wiping surfaces more times than I can count, buying gloves by the truckload, and saying, ‘how can I help you?’ more times than I can count. It’s hands-down the most stressful thing I have ever done, if you don’t count the crazy two hours of childbirth with my second child.

The regulars really make this place tick. They are truly the heart and soul. Some of them have been coming in since we originally opened back in 2002. And maybe I don’t know everybody’s name, but I surely know how they like their eggs on their Joe Schmoe, or what kind of jam they want with their toast, or if they prefer regular Tabasco to Tapatio.

I’m at work all day every day and when I get home, put my kids to bed, open my laptop back up, and I keep trying to look for more grants, more loans, anything that can help me and the people that represent my restaurant.

We’re still standing which is, sadly, more than a lot of other restaurants can say. But the uncertainty of the future has me on edge. I will keep working as long and as hard as needed until we can all weather this storm.

How are you weathering this storm? We're collecting short, first person stories for our series Voices of the Pandemic. We'd love to hear about a moment or decision you faced recently, maybe something that shows how you're experiencing this crisis. Email: rdeluna@kuow.org.

Producer Alec Cowan composed music for this story.