Restaurant deliveries have become most challenging during the Corona virus.
Some companies are near bankruptcy while others have profited beyond their wildest dreams, hampered only by staffing issues and product availability.
United Natural Foods and Albert’s Organics have supplied Bizen for the last 24 years with fresh organic produce and dairy and sugar free, organic groceries.
On Monday, March 16 because they could not fill our grocery order on time for delivery due to hoarding by large stores, we received only our produce order(thank heavens). It took till the following Thursday for our grocery delivery to arrive after begging, pleading and the kind efforts of Beth, our dispatch coordinator.
This Monday I left for Bizen at the crack of dawn to intercept our delivery truck. Seeing it unloading at Berkshire Coop I heaved a sigh of relief knowing that it’s next delivery was Bizen and waited patiently, glancing out the back alley every few minutes where the delivery as always, would surely come. Nothing. Suddenly I heard the rush of a large truck whiz by the front window and I sped outside only to see our truck turn the corner on Railroad Street and disappear. This could not be happening to me. Should I cut across the parking lot at the Triplex past Carr Hardware and throw my body in front of the truck to stop it? Other heroic idiocies also flashed across my mind.
Frantic I called a completely indifferent dispatcher at United who offered no help whatsoever because he could not call a truck in motion. The delivery had been surely aborted and our precious organic treasure lost forever. Another call to dispatch and this time an assurance that the truck was somewhere on Railroad Street. Looking up and down I realized that he must have made the turn and parked around the corner. Running desperately up the street, I turned the corner and there was the UNFI truck, but no driver in sight. Rushing back to Bizen I ran through the front door and ran headlong into the driver scaring the bJesus out of both of us. I backed off immediately, but I guess the concept of social distancing had not yet reached our Vermont frontier regions. The further I retreated the closer he moved towards me as we moved out the back door at a trot now to check the delivery invoice. Everything was in order as we chatted and I kept my distance subtly covering my face with the invoice, now my only defense, as he pontificated in a thick Vermont accent leaving me his final words of wisdom “ you know everything’s going to be fine but It’s going to get worst before it gets better, so be careful and keep your distance “, as he offered me his elbow and vanished up the alleyway.