For thousands of Anne Arundel County residents, the end of the pandemic isn’t quite an end, but a shift from survival to recovery. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, killed more than 500 Anne Arundel County residents this year and infected nearly 36,000 more.
Twenty-twenty started off great. January is usually the toughest month in the restaurant business, with everyone hiding from the cold and saving money after Christmas. But every table was taken at Alo, my flagship restaurant at Queen and Spadina. Same story at my two Alo spinoffs: my diner-inspired spot, Aloette, and my Yorkville steak house, Alobar. We’d just opened our fourth location, a private event space in Yorkville named Salon, and we were already booking weddings into the summer.
After five years in business, we’d matured as a company we could better predict what customers would want with each season, and we could plan. I believed both Alobar and Aloette could be replicated in new neighbourhoods, maybe even in new cities. I started to look forward to every report from Olga Novokchanova, our accountant. I was feeling so good about things that I booked a spring vacation.
Where: Rudyard s, 2010 Waugh
Details: $5; rudyardshtx.com
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 26
Where: Secret Group, 2101 Polk
Details: $20; thesecretgrouphtx.com
While the top-tier comics have revenue from streaming specials, the comics who relied on the gig economy have struggled, akin to independent musicians, over the past nine months.Stages were shut down. The Improv, a franchise with more than 20 clubs nationwide, is operational in Houston, with shows booked through December and into January. But the smaller clubs have been more cautious.
“I wasn’t inclined to go out at all,” Freeman says. “But they have strict rules here, they put you at ease.”