Justin Halbert - Herbe Sainte

MARCH 19, 2020 © Right Here, Right Now.

"It’s such uncharted territory for anybody that it’s just day by day trying to wake up and figure out where to go next, what to do next, who to help next. So I think there’s a sense of just kind of like, unknown. Not really knowing exactly what to do but just trying to do our best day by day. It’s tiring. Monday and Tuesday I spent hours upon hours both days just trying to catch up and get staff issues taken care of, trying to get documentation and paperwork for them so we can start getting people onto unemployment. It’s a delicate balance between owing people money, trying to do the best we can for our staff, for ourselves, and our business. So yeah, I think tired, a little overwhelmed is definitely the word right now.

I’m first and foremost grateful for my wife and my new baby. It is being able to be with them 24/7 right now is definitely a blessing. If I didn’t have that I don’t know what I would be doing, I’d be driving myself crazy. So I’m definitely thankful for that. I’m thankful for the staff that we have with us, not one issue, not one push back. Everybody has been on the same page trying to help each other, trying to…how can we come up with resources for each other, how can we find jobs for each other, how can we find food for each other. Whatever it is that somebody brings up as an issue the entire group has been as one trying to help out. So just completely thankful for my staff and the rest of my family. I’ve been getting to Skype and do video chats with family that I don’t get to regularly so they can see their grandson or nephew, or whoever…you know, my new child. So that’s been a blessing as well just having people that we can reach out at a fingertip.

I think it definitely set it when…it’s tough because I think last Thursday when they started really with the announcements with trying to limit social interaction we knew that the weekend was going to be different. So I think last Thursday it was like, how do you prepare for slower business, how do you staff appropriately, how do we just go about business when there is something changing but there was really no good information. This time of the year if you have a slow weekend, you can kind of deal with it. The problem is…and the reality really hit us in the face was Sunday into Monday when they started limiting groups and social interaction. That's at the point where you’re kind of like, okay, we may not have another week of sales to look forward to. So, I think just that kind of like staunch, “Okay this is something we need to really think about on the business side.” I think when it comes to the actual dealing of this COVID-19 which we’re learning about daily, my wife was really pushing last week to really pay attention. Forget business, talking about the actual disease. We have family that is immune-compromised, we have a 6-month-old baby that doesn’t have an immune system and we don’t know how it's going to affect them. We have aunts and uncles that have just been through cancer treatments and so how do we start balancing our own good personally with the good of the community and with the good of everybody else? So Monday when it seemed like everything was escalating so quickly…Sunday night we had a staff meeting and we posed it to our staff and Monday when it came down and they started limiting it down to ten people we posed it to our staff, “Here are the options for the business and what is it we’re trying to do as a business, for ourselves personally, and we heard everyone collectively say, “Look we need to think about the greater good.” So for us, it’s limiting exposure to people, let’s take time and let’s figure this out without having groups of people together. So I think just looking at it from that standpoint I mean that’s definitely Sunday into Monday the way that it escalated so quickly, but again our staff is all working together on this and really as one, to come to a solution for our business and for ourselves as a group.

There’s an aspect of our industry where we are all such individuals, and we all play a role, we all have a persona. So we have a public persona and we have our own private persona. I put on a big public persona and that’s kind of how I’ve always been, but internally I’m kind of an introvert. I like to be at home, I like to work on my home, I like to be with my wife and my kid. Those are the things that make me happy at the end of the day. So really for me, I’m focusing on those things as a way to distance myself from my public persona. It is…It hurts as the public persona because that is something that you build up almost as you’re superhuman caricature. You know this is who I am, you have a bigger than life mentality because that’s what you have to do in this industry. You have to come in here and you have to be part of the show, and you have to put on the show, and you have to interact with the guests, and you have to bring your A-game every time. So I think there is for me personally, there is a little bit of like, (sighs), Okay maybe I can sit back and recollect my thoughts, and sit back and develop myself personally in this time when there’s not a whole lot more to do. 

There have been lots of moments in our career here within the last three years that have been damn near back-breaking, you’re trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Right now we have twenty plus employees and just trying to sit and think about each and every one of them and the individual and unique circumstances that they have, and trying to balance that with the business circumstances, and so it is, it’s a balancing act and that’s the position that an owner is in is to try to balance it the best you can. I think the way that I deal with it sometimes is looking at things very black and white as best I can. Trying not to involve emotion the best I can, so you try to distance yourself from the emotion and you just try to look at things for what they are. And right now, again, with having a staff that's really responding and kind it’s been such a blessing to say there not a whole lot of emotional response right now, people are being very calculated and very…they know exactly what they have to do for themselves, they’re doing what they can for the group and we’re all kind of responding in kind. And I think you’re seeing that a lot, I think a lot of people are taking heart of this of how much can I give to my community, how much can I give to the restaurants. Not just money, but thoughts and actions and words. I think you’re really seeing the best in people because there’s no phoniness in this right now. This is very personal for everyone. Everyone doesn’t know where their next paycheck is coming from. So, as much as this sucks, there is also a unity and a feeling of community and togetherness that I think maybe you don’t feel sometimes in real daily life. So for those people that are struggling, I’d say right now, the way for me to get past some of this stuff is then to reach out. Because you’re going to see really fast, you’re going to see how people are stepping up, you’re going to see how people are supporting not just you but everybody else around them. I think we’re going to come out of this on the other side so much stronger as a community, Omaha, restaurants, whatever it might be, whatever social group you’re in I think we’re gonna see a ton of strength come out of this. I know people are worried right now for mental health, I know people are worried about a lot of different reasons, for financial help, all those different things. But, I truly think that everybody is going to figure a way out because everybody is in the same position from the lowest paid employees to the highest-paid people in our society. I think everybody is going to feel it in a way and we’re all going to have to figure this out together. 

I think in a sense, and this is what we do every day. We all know if we need something we will reach out. There’s been a couple of people that if there's information to share, you know Noah Mock created a website where we can kind of get together as owners and share certain particular bites of information, I’ve been trying to do my best in that. But what I would want to say to them is I’d say, “ Whatever they need they know they can reach out to anyone of us.” And I know the same thing. I’ve always known that, and anytime we do we try to do it in an appropriate way, understanding their circumstances as well. I think beyond that, we’re all trying to take care of who we can take care of and there's a threshold in the limit so we all try to spread the best information that we can and keep supporting each other the best we can. For those people that are still trying to do to-go and trying to do things like that, I feel for them. It cannot be easy right now trying to balance labor and all the different things that go into it and then just hoping that people will call and get to-go orders in there, I feel for those guys. They’re grinders man, I have tons of respect for everybody."