Zach Ferguson - Restaurant Tales Podcast
MARCH 31, 2020 © Right Here, Right Now.
Transcribed by Nate Foo
"I’ve lived in Omaha now for about, I think seven years? Somewhere around there. I’m originally from southern California. I worked in restaurants for a very long time, and now I work for a wine distributor here. It’s a locally owned wine distributor. We specialize in boutique wines and spirits and a couple of beers as well. Now, I get to interact with all my friends from the restaurant industry on a daily basis. Well… was able to. I primarily focus on craft cocktail bars, fine dining, specialty retail, things like that.
You know, it’s a pretty interesting time. I am currently employed still. This is a pretty hefty pay hit on this. I think I’m actually working more now it seems like, whether that be just delivering empty cases to accounts, so that they can sell stuff. You know, it’s an interesting place to be in a world where there’s a lot of sad people and having to still maintain that work front of being very happy all the time, and being a smiling person everywhere you go. Takes a little bit of a toll. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for sure. For sure, for sure.
The community has rallied so well. There’s still so much uncertainty though for people. People who stayed open for takeout for instance, have now shut down. People who closed initially, are reopening for takeout. Everything is still so unknown and so volatile, that I think there’s so much uncertainty in the industry still, and I think it’s really starting to take a heavy toll on people.
Josh: It feels like this has been going on for a long time, but it hasn’t.
Zach: Two and a half weeks. Less than two and a half weeks.
So we’re sitting in Corkscrew right now. Jordan is the general manager, and they’re still open for retail and wine delivery. Jordan is working on cleaning projects, and that kind of stuff. So, normally when I’m showing up with wine, or to talk or anything, it’s interrupting stuff like deep cleaning. And we sit down, and we have a little bit of wine and talk. And normally, it’s me saying like “Hey how are you doing? How are you personally doing?” I can see how the business is doing by what you’re ordering, and that kind of stuff. I don’t need to ask you that question. A lot of it has just been a bunch of little fear obsessions for a lot of my people. I come in, I pour them a little bit of wine, and we sit down, we chat for a little while. Also, eighty percent of my accounts are closed right now too. I have a very small, little window of people I see each week now. But those people… they're interesting interactions because they have veered away from the business side of things and a lot more into the personal side of things. Relationships have grown stronger through this.
As far as positivity, it has allowed me some time to work on some other projects. Some projects that I was working on previously but had some more time to focus in on. I think it has allowed me to become a lot closer to my accounts and the people in them on a more personal level. Which I love people, and I love people’s stories and things like that, so getting to interact on that level with people has been pretty cool. Overall, there’s a lot of really strong, impressive people who work in this industry. Even through the tough parts of it, it’s been really awesome to see people put their nose through the grind and say “shit happens”. People who didn’t deliver things, who are now figuring out ways to do that. People who have never designed a website before, are figuring how to get things online for people to order. A lot of people learning new things and adapting so quickly. Like you said, we’re less than three weeks into this. The speed at which some of these people have adapted and changed and pivoted, is just mind-blowingly impressive, I think. And it really just shows the resilience of a lot of the folks that work in this industry on a daily basis.
So, Restaurant tales podcast. I do it with my two friends, Brady Hess and Emily Wickman. We started that a little over a year ago, and it really took off in a way that we weren’t really prepared for. It’s been a lot of fun. But normally, those are in person. We all sit down around my table, pour a couple of bottles of wine, hang out and just talk. At this time, we can’t do that anymore, so we’re actually kind of changing things for the foreseeable future. We actually, on this last Sunday, recorded via Skype with everybody. So, all of us in different areas on skype, and recorded that and are checking in with our previous guests. Just taking fifteen minutes, call them up, say “Hey, how are you doing? How’s quarantine going for you? How’s not working going?” You know, that kind of a thing. We’ll just be doing that for the foreseeable future until we move through this.
Yeah, so when this whole thing was very, very first kicking off, I had taken my co-host Emily Wickman, we had gone to the grocery store real quick. We were talking, and we were like “We should start posting pictures of everything that we’re cooking, since we’re-“, you know, most people in the service industry aren’t often cooking at home. Maybe once or twice a week, because during those hours, they’re normally at work. And so, they’re eating a family meal, or they’re having a shift meal, things like that. And while we all enjoy really good food, often times don’t cook that much at home. And we’re like “Everybody’s going to be at home cooking now”. Whether that be macaroni and cheese, or steak and potatoes, everybody’s cooking. So, we kind of started a thing where we just basically said “Send us pictures of your food, and we’ll repost it”. We each take turns on a day doing it. You can normally tell who’s reposting things pretty easily. Brady posts weird sports things, Emily is really funny, and I’m just like “Here’s the food” because I’m not that funny. So that’s been kind of a fun thing that we’ve done. It’s just a way for people to think about something else that’s going on. It’s just a way to take your mind off things. At this point, we have a lot of people who worked a lot and suddenly are not working anymore. Also, people in the service industry tend to thrive off of human interaction, whether they like to admit that or not. They could be a little bitter about people and things like that, but really do, at the end of the day, thrive off of, whether you’re a bartender with the interaction you would have there, or a server at the tables. I think cold turkey losing that is mentally a tough thing for people.
We’re looking at some really tough stuff coming up here, but I’m really hopeful that as an industry that we progress and evolve into taking care of people better. Doing a better job at keeping our people healthy. Possibly looking at some better ways of paying people and adjusting some of those structures that are pretty entrenched right now and are really tough to remove without everybody doing it at the same time. You can’t take away tipping without everybody doing it at the same time and figuring out a way for that to work. But I think through something like this, there is some opportunity to look at some really positive changes in the way we deal with employees in the service industry.
What’s the really famous saying? “Distance makes the heart grow fonder”. I think people are realizing what life is like without a lot of these people that they take for granted. Often times, if you haven’t been involved in the industry, your server is just an auxiliary to your experience. You’re not thinking about them as a person, and who they are. I think it’s very quickly brought that to light. Suddenly, people can’t go out to eat anymore. They have to think about how someone else was making that food for me. Somebody else knew how to make that cocktail that I now have to Google “how to make my basic drink that I like to drink”. I think that it will bring a little bit more to light for the general public.
I mean, I will say, I am so thankful for you guys. I think that your impact at this point is going to be massive, in the talent that you guys have and are applying to this industry and to just small businesses in general. I think it’s so fucking important. It’s opening a window into a world that a lot of people don’t see on a regular basis. And a lot of people especially don’t see in the quality form that you are presenting. I would just like to say, from my perspective of this, thank you, because it is massively important for the people who are living their daily lives in this area right now to have some validation. I think you’re providing that validation and that’s really important.
Josh: Well, we also appreciate you. I’m going to throw that right back at you. That’s what I love about Omaha. From photographers, to cinematographers, to servers, there’s always this way of unity.
Zach: It’s small enough to where everybody still has interactions, whether you’re in completely separate industries. You can still have consistent interactions with people, no matter what your actual background is and what you do on a daily basis too.
You know, I will say this. At the end of this, what 99% percent of people are going to want to do as soon as they can is go have a drink with a bunch of people and eat some really dope food. And I think that means a lot, in the fact that even if some place that you were working at does completely close, even if you’re unsure of when exactly you’re gonna reopen, there are going to be lined up at the door. And it’s going to be tough. There’s the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation is that it’s going to be brutal. It’s going to be really tough for a lot of people, and that’s heartbreaking to me. I wish that I could do more. I wish I was in a financial situation where I could just give all my friends a bunch of money, and we could all be fine, party and call it good. But without a doubt, I do know that this industry will come through this, be better, and there will be people to serve the second that everybody reopens. Without a doubt. Without a doubt in my mind. I’ve worked in the service industry for my entire adult life at this point, and some of the absolute best human beings I’ve ever met, and some of the most resilient, smart, talented people have been in this industry. And I know with those people behind, we will definitely come through this. It’s a tough, weird time. Like I said, I am currently employed right now. Don’t necessarily know how much longer that’s going to go. Thankfully, we’re coming to the end of March. Restaurants had a baller start to this year. We had people putting up record numbers in February. Like stupid numbers in February. In the beginning of March up until this was CRAZY. Omaha was killing it. And then, that just came to a screeching halt. For somebody who sells to a lot of those places, March is okay, because it started really well. Tomorrow starts April and uh… it’ll be a very different month. A very, very different month.
Josh: What’s it feel like being employed right now?
Zach: Weird. It’s tough because my girlfriend is not right now. It’s a weird feeling. Like I said earlier, I feel like I’m actually working harder right now for a lot less. Personally, my sales dropped by like 86%, but for some reason I’m working a lot. That last little bit that I am still selling takes a lot of effort. A lot, a lot of work to get that. Even just outside my day job, I’m somehow way busier than I was when this whole thing started. But yeah, being employed is an odd feeling. There’s also a weight of responsibility that I feel in that too. Like, the people I am still selling to, I am required to do that because it allows them to continue to pay people. It allows them to continue to employ people. And also the fact that the weight of being somebody whose required to be out in the world through this right now every single day. I’ve never washed my hands as much, I am somebody who touches my face all the time. And so, to retrain myself over the last couple of weeks, to just be like “Nope. Can’t do that”. As a company, we’re actually starting everybody with artifact masks this week. Again, we don’t want to be somebody that spreads something, but still having to go out and talk to people is just a part of work. It’s interesting seeing people talking about “Day whatever: being home not leaving the house” and I’m like “Shit, that sounds nice” haha. But also at the same time, realizing that that’s just the reality of what that means for other people is just drastically different. And I am very thankful to be employed. I really, really am. But again, there just comes a certain weight with also still being employed. You have people who I think think just a little different than it is at the moment. It’s just really tough. It’s a pretty tough world at the moment. Even being employed. As if being employed doesn’t suddenly make the problems and everything that’s going on go away. Actually it enhances them in some way."