OLYMPIA, Wash. — Sandy Hall had a bad feeling in the early days of the pandemic.
“I was just like, ‘Something’s wrong and it’s never going to be the same again,'” she said.
Hall was the co-owner of Olympia’s Dillinger’s Cocktails & Kitchen, a bar where it was hard to get a table Friday night, March 13, 2020.
“All of a sudden people started canceling, canceling, canceling,” Hall said. “By the time Sunday morning rolled around we had two people for brunch.”
Hall said it’s “bittersweet” knowing the restrictions that forced her out of business last September are ending.
She’s sad she’s not serving drinks anymore, but said, “I’m very happy for all of the people who have made it this far.”
For Dillinger’s, take-out food, to-go cocktails, and federal and state assistance helped keep the place afloat until the end of September.
It was hard to attract diners amid a summer with heated political demonstrations, and no theaters with customers looking for food and drinks before or after shows.
According to the Washington Hospitality Association, Hall’s restaurant was one of 19 in Olympia to close in the first nine months of 2020.
Across the state 2,369 restaurants closed between January and September 2020. Of those, 1,023 were in King County, and 624 were in Seattle, according to the association’s figures.