{ "archive_path": "archive/1787801053.093614", "base_url": "cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic", "basename": "", "bookmarked_date": "2026-08-27 03:24", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=cdispatch.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/index.html" }, "domain": "cdispatch.com", "extension": "", "hash": "NJHVJ9R2RDJVD034NW2P", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=cdispatch.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:14.473940+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787801053.093614", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:14.094554+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:14.683087+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787801053.093614", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:14.481491+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:31.885658+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787801053.093614", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:28.751029+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmp7ygtshjk", "https://cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:28.738084+00:00", "index_texts": [ "Kaylee Gavin hands Cayden Davis a to-go order through the takeout window at Zachary\u2019s in Columbus. Doug Pellum, owner of Zachary\u2019s, said the takeout window was installed because of the increase in takeout orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He estimated a 15% increase in takeout orders in the six years since the pandemic and said the window has helped tremendously with the flow of business. Ashlyn Joyner/Dispatch Staff\t\n\t\t\tAs Jamie Cater envisioned her restaurant\u2019s grand opening and set the date for March 2020, she wasn\u2019t planning on COVID-19 cases climbing high enough to cause a worldwide lockdown that same month.\nInitially, Cater feared what the pandemic would mean for her restaurant\u2019s third and newest location in Starkville. When restaurants became limited to offering takeout orders, she realized the pandemic could help her business.\n\u201cBecause my business model is very much based on to-go \u2013 gourmet to-go, prepared foods \u2013 it really went great (during) the pandemic,\u201d Cater said. \u201cThat was already my business model. I was fortunate because I already had all that in place. \u2026 I had the containers, the menu that already explained it all. I wasn\u2019t reinventing the wheel. I was just doing what I already did, but on a larger scale.\u201d\nThe timing of Cater\u2019s Market\u2019s launch wasn\u2019t ideal \u2013 yet, conditions created by the pandemic actually helped it survive.\nBut the pandemic fundamentally changed the way other restaurants in the Golden Triangle operate. Six years later, dining rooms have long been reopened, but things still look a little different.\nRestaurants are back\nThere are seven more food services and drinking establishments in 2025 in Clay County than in 2020, according to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties saw net increases of 12 and 21, respectively.\nRestaurant revenue has increased in Lowndes and Clay counties, according to data from the 2017 and 2022 Economic Censuses conducted by the Census Bureau. After adjusting for inflation using the national food away from home consumer price index from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, revenue increased by 18.71% in Clay County, and in Lowndes County, revenue increased by 6.46%. Data is unavailable for Oktibbeha County.\nThe Dispatch interviewed five restaurants local to the Columbus and Starkville areas. All five said their businesses have returned to \u201cnormal\u201d \u2013 or, as normal as possible after the pandemic.\n\u201cWe\u2019re back to doing the same things we were before, just in different ways now,\u201d said Doug Pellum, owner of Zachary\u2019s in Columbus.\nA new normal\n\u201cWhen we were shut down, we obviously had more carry-out business during that period, and it has remained higher than it was prior ever since,\u201d said Campbell Proffitt, owner of Proffitt\u2019s Porch in Columbus.\nHe\u2019s not the only one who noticed this change.\nFour out of the five restaurant operators who spoke to The Dispatch said the number of takeout orders they receive has increased significantly in the years since the pandemic. The exception was Cater, who said takeout orders continued to account for 50% of all orders due to her business model.\nMugshots estimated takeout orders increased by 20%, Proffitt\u2019s Porch estimated a 4% increase, Umi Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar in Starkville couldn\u2019t narrow down a percentage but said takeout orders increased, and Zachary\u2019s estimated a 15% increase.\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBryan Smith serves Jacob Britt and Cooper Long at Mugshots in Columbus. Jim Hicks, owner of Mugshots in Columbus and Starkville, said the increase in takeout orders since the COVID-19 pandemic has led to servers and bartenders making less tips because not as many people opt for the full dine-in experience. \u201cYou can walk in a restaurant, and there may not be many people sitting there, but the kitchen can still be very busy creating all these orders that are to-go,\u201d Hicks said. Ashlyn Joyner/Dispatch Staff\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\nTwo restaurants made adjustments to cope with this major change. Pellum said Zachary\u2019s installed a walk-up window, and Raine Rossum, general manager of Umi in Starkville, said the restaurant moved its takeout counter to a different location.\nJim Hicks, owner of Mugshots in both Columbus and Starkville, said the pandemic taught restaurants that less is more.\n\u201cWe learned that we could operate the kitchen with less people, not because we wanted to, (but) because of the necessity of it,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cI think (the pandemic) forced restaurants to be more efficient because we were just working with so much less. We were kind of in survival mode, and I think some of that stuff stuck.\u201d\nOther differences restaurant operators mentioned included prioritizing sanitation, working with more delivery companies like DoorDash and UberEats, offering curbside pickup, closing earlier, sending employees home faster if they show signs of illness and offering customers hand sanitizer.\nThe lone lingering problem\nOperators of three restaurants interviewed by The Dispatch said they aren\u2019t dealing with pandemic-era problems anymore, but Umi and Mugshots both indicated lingering issues with the labor force.\nAccording to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, restaurants are employing more people, with an increase in average annual employment from 2020 to 2025 of 17.54% in Clay County, 12.93% in Lowndes County and 39.34% in Oktibbeha County.\nThose employees are earning 1.29% more in Clay County and 4.36% more in Lowndes County since 2020, according to annual average wage data from the bureau that has been adjusted for inflation using available 2025 consumer price index data. However, wages have decreased 4.96% for food services and drinking places employees in Oktibbeha County since 2020.\nWhat the numbers don\u2019t show is the struggle restaurant operators experience while looking for eager, full-time employees.\n\u201cFinding employees is much harder,\u201d Rossum said. \u201cPeople seem to not need to work as much as they did before.\u201d\nThe increase in takeout orders could be adding to the struggle by decreasing certain employees\u2019 revenue, Hicks said.\n\u201cThat business is taking away from the servers and the bartender a little bit, because they\u2019re not dining in and getting the full restaurant experience,\u201d Hicks said.\nSandra Reeves, previous owner of Farmstead restaurant in Columbus, shared these staffing struggles. After being open for more than 11 years, Farmstead closed in April 2021.\n\u201cWhen we opened back up (after the pandemic), a lot of people didn\u2019t come back to work,\u201d Reeves said. \u201c\u2026 We were constantly short-staffed.\u201d\nFarmstead amicably parted ways with some of its best staff, who were offered opportunities that better fit their lifestyles, Reeves said. After posting help wanted signs, conducting unsuccessful interviews and raising base wages for servers, Reeves and her husband decided closing was in their best interest.\n\u201cI think we did everything that we could possibly do,\u201d Reeves said. \u201cThe (number of) customers was very good, but you\u2019ve got to have people to take care of them. And not having those people \u2026 that\u2019s a scary place to be.\u201d\nRestaurant operators aren\u2019t sure whether these changes were entirely caused by the pandemic. Some wonder which changes were inevitable as part of broader changes in consumer behavior, such as the convenience of more takeout and delivery options.\n\u201cDid COVID cause all those (changes) to happen, or did life cause all those (changes) to happen?\u201d Pellum said.\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n \n \n Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.\n \n \n\n\t\t\t\n \n \n Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787801053.093614", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:27.019942+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:27.012350+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Dining out: Restaurants adapt to \u2018new normal\u2019 six years after pandemic - The Dispatch", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787801053.093614", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:26.984806+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--backup-converted", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--warc-file=/data/archive/1787801053.093614/warc/1787989874", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "https://cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:26.975300+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/index.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787801053.093614", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-29T07:51:14.692004+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "Dining out: Restaurants adapt to \u2018new normal\u2019 six years after pandemic - The Dispatch", "warc": null, "wget": "cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/index.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1787801053.093614", "newest_archive_date": "2026-08-29T07:51:28.751029+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-08-29T07:51:14.094554+00:00", "path": "/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "cc7a30fd-576e-44c7-aa99-60e23ddd31ad", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1787801053-import.txt" ], "tags": ",pool,cdispatch_local", "tags_str": "pool,cdispatch_local", "timestamp": "1787801053.093614", "title": "Dining out: Restaurants adapt to \u2018new normal\u2019 six years after pandemic - The Dispatch", "updated": "2026-08-29T07:51:14.094407+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-08-29 07:51", "url": "https://cdispatch.com/news/dining-out-restaurants-adapt-to-new-normal-six-years-after-pandemic/" }