Carefully On Tiptoe And In Mask Stealing Back To The Restaurants

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​CAREFULLY ON TIPTOE AND IN MASK STEALING BACK TO THE RESTAURANTS

...Continued from yesterday​ :      
​     Tom and I settled into our weekday routine, more or less.
     After dropping the girls at school we’d head to downtown Manhattan Beach.

    It appeared that the local population, though still masked for the most part, had - unlike my mate and I - bravely returned to the restaurants.

     Our destination was the news shop where we’d pick up our daily copy of the New York Times.  ​

​     Picking up the Times was a two-person mission.
    Since parking a car in downtown Manhattan Beach was an event in and of itself,

 ...Tom would drop me off at the news shop then circle the block while I grabbed the paper, then he would pick me up on his way back around. Though I always zipped in and out of the store the owner soon came to know me. If I happened not to have the correct change for my paper she'd tell me not to worry about it, though on some occasions I gave her more than the amount due and insisted that she keep the change. I felt it was more equitable that way. 
    Our next stop was usually Ralph’s, my favorite of favorite supermarkets because of all the beautiful palm trees in the parking lot.

     At Ralph's we'd pick up any needed household provisions along with the ingredients for whatever anyone might have requested for dinner, such as Grammie's home made chicken noodle soup,

...with hot rolls, 

...or Grandpa's apple pie.

     After our newspaper and grocery run we'd have a few hours before picking up the girls from school, during which time we read our New York Times and I generally settled into my favorite spot for some writing.

     One day after we picked up our grand daughters from school they begged us to take them to Mandy's for lunch.  
        Mandy's is a little local eatery that Tom and I discovered years ago and that our grand daughters considered "our place" to take them for breakfast or lunch whenever we visited.

    One of the staff once told us that the interior has been used on a few occasions for movie settings.

​ However, much as we love going with our grand daughters to "our place,"  Tom and I were hesitant. After all, not counting our airport  breakfast a few days before of a cheesesque-coated scrambled egg tile in a bagel (see post from 5/29/2021, "Good-Bye, COVID Cocoon, Hello, Square-Egg McBagels"),

...we had not been to a restaurant since the onset of the epidemic, and we we still feeling a little COVID-spooked. 
       After further discussion - and begging - we decided that we would go to Mandy's; if the place was just a little crowded we would order take-out; if it was very crowded we wouldn't go inside at all.
       As it turned out, when we arrived - it was about 1 pm on a Friday afternoon - the place was empty,

...except for one elderly gentleman who was sitting off by himself in a booth.  We pulled in a deep breath and decided - after all, we were vaccinated and the children had been back in school for months - to risk eating our first real restaurant meal here at Mandy's. 
​      The staff remembered us from previous visits and were as glad to see us as we were to see them.

     They told us that the past year had been hard. However, they had one loyal customer who came for lunch every day - the elderly gentleman in the booth - and who always had the same meal, the surf and turf, which they invited me to take a picture of.

       Tom likewise had his Mandy's standard,

...and I had mine, the fabulous Veggie Scramble,

      Before we left they gave us some watermelon slices to bring home.

​   A few days later while out on our downtown New York Times run,

...we pondered, having eaten at Mandy's and come away none the worse so far, whether we might try eating breakfast out at another place we used to frequent back in the pre-COVID day, a Manhattan Beach spot called the Local Yolk.    

​ Once again, we decided to do a careful reconnaissance of the place then play it by ear.

    The place wasn't empty, but it wasn't crowded, either.

     We decided to make our move.

     A few days after that our grand daughters asked if we could again go our for lunch  in honor of it having been crazy hair day at school. This time they asked to go to Johnny Rocket's. Tom and I looked at each other. "Sure," we said. 

     To be continued...