- June 27, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
They’re back — hungry and in large, sometimes overwhelming numbers.
Not the Brood X cicadas, but patrons at Akron restaurants and bars. Area establishments report they’re seeing dining rooms as crowded as they were before the pandemic, with one popular spot downtown reporting its largest crowds in at least three years.
Now, owners say, if they could only get their workers back, times would be great. As it is, many of them are working harder than ever, often at tasks they used to pay others to do.
“We’re all doing it on a minimum staff,” said Daniel Basone, owner of The Lockview bar and restaurant downtown, as well as El Gato Taqueria next door on South Main Street.
Basone, who is 59, answered the phone cheerfully, even though he said he had just strained his back lifting a keg of beer — something he normally wouldn’t have to do himself. But for now at least, with customers aplenty and help scarce, he said he has little choice.
Basone’s restaurants,…
