Lapeer BBQ Restaurant Staying Open During COVID-19 ‘Pause’

"At the end of the day, we had to figure out what we can do to take care of our team."

With the newest COVID-19 "Pause To Save Lives," many service employees are, once again, looking at a loss of wages. And, as was reported yesterday, there are restaurants in southeastern Michigan who are taking the risk of staying open for their employees.

Woodchips BBQ in Lapeer is one of those restaurants.

The owner, Patrick Hingst told Mid-Michigan Now that, if he were to shut down again, he'd have to layoff at least 20 employees.

"I've got single moms here, I've got people with mortgages to pay, bills that are due, and we can brand this as a pause but those things don't pause, so at the end of the day we had to figure out what we can do to take care of our team."

Hingst says that he is going to reduce capacity indoors to 25% and temperature-check patrons at the door. He's also installing partitions and moving tables 6-feet away from each other.

They've also started a GoFundMe page for their employees, which you can donate to HERE.

"Blame does not feed kids.  It does not keep the lights on.  It does not keep a roof over heads. 'Take care of your people.  Take care of your people.'  The words repeated in my head as I did my best to ensure each teammate that we would find a way to get through this."