It isn't just virus fear. In some areas, it is disgusting and disrespectful customer behavior, spewing political hatred at a server just trying to do his/her job. Last week, I had a server thank me when I went to pull up my mask as she approached. (Generally, compliance around here is very high, as well as respect for the comfort level of whomever may be around you.) When I was recently in Honolulu, I witnessed such behavior. The locals were beside themselves. On my taxi ride back to HNL, the driver was relaying a incident from the prior evening, when a waitress, who just got off her shift, broke down and cried in the taxi due to the barrage of disrespect thrown at her during her shift while she was just trying to have her customers obey the local rules.

I've lived in a "server shortage" region for years. Most restaurants can't pay enough for people to live around here - at least not on a single income. A dear friend (still mostly unemployed) had a job for 15+ years at a long time local spot, made a decent amount of money, and still needed a second part time job to make ends meet with a very frugal lifestyle (i.e., home cooking, one vacation in 5+ years, old car, etc.)

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. If I were a restaurant owner at the end of a not-great lease term, and my landlord wasn't willing to have a serious chat, I'd give thought to shopping around for a lovely built out space and move. There will be a lot of them - with multi-6 figure build outs, sitting vacant.