Safety is at heart of inoculation goals
VACCINE: In-house clinics targeting restaurant workers in normalcy push
Oscar Fuentes, 32, said he’d tried for weeks to score a vaccine appointment to protect himself and the customers he serves at the Original Ninfa’s in Uptown, but he hadn’t been able to find one.
That’s one of the reasons Legacy Restaurants, parent company of the Original Ninfa’s and Antone’s Famous Po’ Boys, decided to host an inhouse vaccine clinic. After receiving his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at the clinic Monday, Fuentes said he looked forward to telling his customers so they feel more at ease.
“Being able to tell my customers, ‘I got the vaccine,’” he said outside the clinic’s entrance, “that will give them more confidence to come to our place.”
For Legacy Restaurants and other chains, the push to vaccinate staff is about more than safety. Restaurant chains see employee vaccinations as a way to raise customer confidence and make people feel safer as they begin to dine out again and are part of an effort to restore a level of normalcy in an industry that has seen more than 11,000 eateries in Texas
close since the pandemic struck.
“We believe it’s the best way to protect all of our employees and all of our customers. It’s the way we’re going to get back to our normal, our normal before 2020,” said Ana Fernandez, health and safety director for the Houston company, which employs around 300 people and owns five restaurants, noting the company will be requiring employee vaccinations with few exceptions. “I think it sends the message that we’re doing everything we can to keep people safe.”
Legacy’s clinic is among the first in-house vaccination operations of its kind in Houston; the chain partnered with the Texas Vaccine Institute to vaccinate 280 employees.
Showing the consumer a restaurant or bar is safe is important, too, for the bottom line, said Chris Elliott, chief executive of FSC Franchise Co., parent company of the Tampa-based craft beer bar the Brass Tap, which has 25 employees at its outpost in Midtown and 1,000 overall. To that end, he’s giving $100 gift cards to employees who get vaccinated, allowing them to choose from Target, Walmart or Amazon.
Across the company’s 39 locations, Elliott said customers have balked during the pandemic when they noticed safety measures slip, and they celebrated when their neighborhood bar adhered to those measures.
“The consumers made it pretty clear that they are more apt to come out and visit with you if they think you’re a safe place to visit,” he said.
The Greater Houston Restaurant Association held its own clinic last week, vaccinating 570 food service workers with a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Cameron James, board president of the association, said it has pushed for months to prioritize vaccines for restaurant workers, who both work on the front lines with customers and tend to be too busy working in restaurants to land an appointment.
It’s good for everyone, and it’s good for business, James said.
“I think any business that can say, ‘we’re vaccinated,’ it just makes the general public a little more confident going to that business.”
Laura Moreno, 34, works as a cashier at Ninfa’s on Navigation and said she appreciated the clinic because all the pharmacies she’d tried were too busy. The uncertainty and possibility of exposure has been difficult, she said. “It’s hard because you don’t know when you’re going to get something.”
For Luis Rivas, whose wife works at Ninfa’s, the vaccine was a tonic for “dangerous times.” Struggling to roll up his long sleeves, Rivas took off his shirt for the shot without hesitation, throwing a cheeky peace sign for the camera while his wife took a photo.
Others were more nervous. “Lista?” asked Jocelyn Oviedo as she readied to administer a dose. “Ready?”
“Lista,” said Ninfa’s cook Lamberto Salamanca, closing his eyes.
“We believe it’s the best way to protect all of our employees and all of our customers. It’s the way we’re going to get back to our normal.”
Ana Fernandez, health and safety director for Legacy Restaurants