Kitchen closed by Covid-19, but open for solidarity
Restrictive measures for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) forced Parrillada Barral, a business that had been open since 1980, to close its doors to the public, as has happened to most of the country's hospitality businesses, and apply a Temporary Employment Regulation File (ERTE), but that has not extinguished the flame of solidarity in your kitchen.
The restaurant is closed, but Javier Barral continues to take care of some of his most loyal customers, those heroes who these days travel the roads to ensure the supply of food and other essential products to the population.
The parking lot of this business in Coirós (A Coruña), close to the northwestern highway (A Coruña-Madrid), continues to receive some of those truckers who hardly find places to get a hot dish on their routes.
It is then when Javier Barral leaves his house, next to the restaurant, to offer them free the menu of the day that he prepares for his family.
"They are lifelong customers, they know us forever, they come at night and I give them what I have. We cook for the house and, since I don't know how to do it in small quantities, I always have plenty and I offer it to them. Today, for example, macaroni bolognese and chicken in sauce, "he explains to Efe.
Parrillada Barral "had enough forecasts in the business, all in conservation chambers and in perfect condition", so for now it has not even asked its suppliers to join this solidarity initiative.
In the kitchen and on the esplanade of the restaurant he moves safely. "I always cook with gloves and a mask, as if we were open. Not for them (the truckers) but also for my children. Outside, I also wear gloves and a mask and keep my distance," he points out.
When the truckers arrive and park, he approaches the cabins of the trucks, which "are almost their homes."
"I tell them what I have to eat. That way they can have something hot because, as one of them told me, if the bug is not going to kill them, the cholesterol will, with what they are eating these days out there," he argues.
Although they try to pay him, he does not charge. Cooking for solidarity: "Unfortunately, I have had to do an ERTE for the employees. I am self-employed, I stopped everything and I have the business closed. I do this to give a hand to these people who have been stopping here for many years and because I have the house next door. "
The health crisis has forced him to lower the blind to the family business that his parents founded in 1980 and that, with them retired, he and his sister have managed since 2001.
"At home we are all well. We have been separated from the world since the day they ordered us to close," he says.
He says that "this is not the time to look at the losses" that the Covid-19 has brought him, and he observes with concern and uncertainty the future.
"I imagine that we will resume it little by little, with part of the capacity of the premises and measures to take. This is annoying for everyone," admits Barral, pending the parking lot to offer his solidarity menu.
He discreetly takes his initiative, he does not want photos. It was the truckers themselves who gave him publicity with messages of thanks on social networks.
Carlos Alberto Fernández
