As the nationâs restaurant and service industry continues to face challenges nearly one year into the pandemic, local restaurateurs are adapting their business models and shrinking their footprint to better serve COVID-minded customers.
Commercial real estate brokers are already seeing a demand for new development with drive-thrus and larger patio space, according to Tucson Realty and Trust Co. retail specialist Frank Arrotta. Other business owners are repurposing former restaurant space into fast-casual concepts focused on customer service with minimal contact, he said.Â
âThe footprint is smaller now in those four walls, meaning thereâs very little dining space inside if any,â Arrotta said. âMy clients are looking to make it easier for their customers to walk in to get take-out or pull up to a drive-thru window.â
Print article Even the main players in a new, business-leaning COVID-19 nonprofit admit it seems like a strange time to form a group with a mission centered on staying safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Two vaccines just got rolled out. Alaska’s daily case counts have dropped to lows not seen since October. Hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 are down. That’s just why the Conquer COVID Coalition is important now, says Jared Kosin, who heads up a statewide hospital association and serves as a co-chair of the new group. “This is a critical point in the pandemic. We all, for the first time, have a sense of hope,” Kosin said Tuesday, the same day Anchorage officials announced that the city would relax some pandemic restrictions on businesses starting Friday. “It’s really easy to become complacent right now because it doesn’t feel like COVID is as scary, it doesn’t feel as threatening.”
It seems like almost every Tucson wall tells a story.
Some of them involve the Virgen de Guadalupe and others involve a man s skull shooting colorful beams of light into the ether.
Here s just a little selection of some of our favorites seen around town. Tucson s muralists continue to be hard at work during the pandemic creating images that are both hopeful and thought provoking.Â
UPDATE: Now with 12 more murals that you can find all around Tucson and Sahuarita.Â
Tucson Medical Center Mural
This mural at Tucson Medical Center was painted by Joe Pagac, Katherine Joyce Lester and Arielle Pagac-Alelunas in March 2021. Veronica M. Cruz