Caring customers give businesses a lift

Generous response from residents during tough time helps hard-hit dining spots

RICK HALL, A COOK AT Between the Greens in the Town of Saukville (top photo) busily boxed up to-go orders last Friday. Between the Greens co-owner Dawn Books (bottom photo) took an order over the phone. Arin Isaacson (middle photo) showed a card from a Cedarburg woman who couldn’t make her regular weekly trip to Messina’s Restaurant in Saukville but sent a check that included a tip for her, as Messina’s owner Carmelo Raffaele looked on. Photos by Sam Arendt
By 
DAN BENSON
Ozaukee Press Staff

These are tough times for restaurants and bar owners following orders from the state on March 17 to shut down dine-in service and only offer takeout and delivery orders.

Residents from Saukville and nearby communities are helping out by eating as much takeout food as they can.

“Everyone has been just amazing,” Carmelo Raffaele, owner of Messina’s Restaurant, said in an interview last week.

On Saturday, he posted on Facebook:

“Last night, we had no idea what to expect and due to our friends, long time customers, etc. we had one of the best Friday Nights EVER!!!!”

The folks at Between the Greens on Highway I in the Town of Saukville were in the middle of their annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration when they were ordered to shut down by 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 17.

But customers came to the rescue by placing lots of to-go orders that night and in the days following. Plus, they tipped the waitstaff generously.

“We had people come in and volunteer to take phone calls for me; they got very good tips,” owner Rob Brooks said. “A friend drove down from Sheboygan to do takeout.”

Tonia Matha and Spyder Schowalter, who manage d’Klein bar and restaurant in Saukville, helped the cause by immediately starting a Facebook page titled, “Local Menus For Takeout & Delivery in Ozaukee Co Area,” where area restaurants and their patrons can post menus and other comments.

“We live in Saukville and Port Washington and I work in Grafton (at PostNet). So we started it with Ozaukee County” restaurants, but it soon expanded, Matha said.

On Monday, the page had surpassed 3,000 likes.

“We were expecting maybe a thousand,” Matha said.

They reached that number in less than 24 hours, she noted.

“I was really surprised. I never dreamed it would morph into what it has. I think it’s awesome that neighbors are supporting neighbors and everybody has everybody’s back,” Matha said.

On March 19, Raffaele got a card in the mail from longtime patron, Judy Kornemann of Cedarburg, who eats at Messina’s every Thursday and is always waited on by Arin Isaacson.

Kornemann, who is elderly, explained she did not have Covid-19 symptoms but felt safer staying at home. To make up for the lost business, she enclosed a check for $200 — about what she spends each month at the restaurant — and instructed Raffaele to give 30% to Isaacson as a tip.

“Honestly, I was just kinda shocked,” Isaacson said. “That’s just such a sweet gesture. Judy is such a kind lady, but I still didn’t see that coming.”

Isaacson isn’t the only one to whom customers are showing their appreciation.

“People are leaving very generous tips for the girls,” Raffaele said. 

Lisa Burich is in uncharted waters, and not just because of the changes wrought by the epidemic.

“I never did delivery before,” the owner of the Riverview Inn on Highway W said. “It’s really taking off and doing really well. It’s something I’ve thought about, and this kind of forced me to do it.”

Besides pizzas and other normal fare, Burich has added home-baked specialty breads and white bread that she normally serves with dinners.

“Now we’re selling the whole loaf,” she said. 

“I’ve heard several times from people who said they just want to support me. And the tipping has been exceptional. That has helped the waitresses.”

Burich said she is trying to keep as many of her workers employed as possible by circulating all of them through shifts “so everybody is getting some hours.”

Others are applying for unemployment at their employers’ urging since they can probably bring more income home that way than working reduced hours.

The success of the restaurant Facebook page in the midst of the coronavirus crisis has inspired Matha to start two others —”We Are All Homeschoolers,” for parents at home with their children during the school district shutdown, and “Non-Food Local Small Businesses in Ozaukee County and Surrounding Areas,” to encourage people to frequent local small businesses. 

Whether local restaurants can survive for long under the emergency regulations is questionable, but Matha thinks the long-term effect on the community may be positive.    

“When this is said and done, everybody will continue to support their local businesses,” she said.

“I really do believe this whole thing is going to change the community for the better. How could it not?”

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Ozaukee Press

Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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