By Erin Freeman | Lynnwood Times
Local Lynnwood restaurants are accommodating to Gov. Jay Inslee’s proclamation prohibiting in-person dining at restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic and are still open for business. Michelle Mather, a waitress and manager at Sparta’s Pizza & Pasta House, says the restaurant has been able to adjust with ease due to the support of the Lynnwood community.
“We have a really strong community here that’s all amazing and supporting us. It’s why we’re able to still have our doors open,” said Mather. “We have such good support right now.”
Sparta’s Pizza has adjusted its hours of operation to support a business relying on take-out orders.
“We get a lot of calls just making sure we are still open. We’ve just had to shorten our hours and close earlier.”
Throughout the state of emergency, they are open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends.
The local Italian restaurant has been in the city of Lynnwood for the past 42 years. Mather says Sparta’s Pizza is grateful for the continued support from the community, explaining that without it, they would have had to close. The continued business the restaurant receives, allows the full-time employees to continue to work.
“All of our full-time staff is still able to work,” explained Mather. “We’re pretty fortunate that most of our staff are teenagers and live at home, so our staff is not too affected by the drop of business.”
The restaurant is also taking extra precautions to ensure that customers are safe, through increases in sanitation procedures.
“We’re a clean restaurant to begin with, but we’ve just upped our sanitary process. We’ve put hand sanitizer by the cash registers so that every time we touch money, we use sanitizer,” said Mathers. “We are always wearing gloves and always washing our hands. We’re just on top of everything and continue to make sure that everybody that’s working is healthy.”
Mather believes that for many restaurants and small businesses, the support of customers may be more important than ever before.
“Everybody should be supporting local businesses. That’s the only way our community is going to survive,” explains Mather. “It’s tough for everybody, and I just think we need to come together to help each other.
Sparta’s Pizza & Pasta House is located at 17630 Hwy 99, Lynnwood, WA 98037. Visit https://www.spartaspizza.com/ to place an order for pickup or delivery.
