LANSDALE â The year of the pandemic has brought challenges none could have expected. And local restaurants have found ways to adapt and survive, if not always thrive, throughout a year like no other. "In the very beginning, there was so much uncertainty. We didn't know if what they were letting us do was going to continue," said Michael Wister, owner of Wister's Barbecue. - Advertisement - "Living through all that uncertainty in the first month was brutal, just brutal. It was just instinct, because there was no manual: it was like, just do what you think is right," he said.