I like to be a regular. In principle. In reality it has never been possible because I also like variety. That is until recently.

Variety has been sorely missed during this pandemic. Queue the lines about the longest lockdown, which for the record, was not anywhere near the harshest lockdown globally, but dragged on like the 2019 grand final. If you think I’m embellishing you were not in Melbourne. No one lives here for the weather. Going out is a way of life; it is life itself.

I wrote a bit about Pillar Of Salt when the lockdown had just begun. At the time I knew a lot of the staff by face, but not by name, and I must admit we were all okay with that. The person who had the most impact on me, with a simple “things have changed” type disclosure, told me over the weekend that they were leaving. That was simultaneous with another resignation from someone who I, and my wife, had really built a friendship with.

It’s hard to admit in a sense, but I’m really quite sad about it. Their sense of “this place reminds me of a very difficult lockdown” is fair, but in my mind “you were part of the reason my family got through lockdown”. Again, I’m not embellishing. Sometimes we went weeks with only having conversations between ourselves and the staff at Pillar. I’m genuinely sad thinking about that ending, but I know that in other post-lockdown times it is not the same when you get busy.

I want to tell the staff at Pillar Of Salt, and I want other hospitality staff to know, that the relationship with customers is important. It means a lot, and I hope everyone takes some time to remind the cafe and restaurant staff of the places they frequent that they are important to them. I’m an emotional person and I can tear up a bit when I talk emotively, but I hope I was sincere when I told people like Franco and Lauren what they meant to Catherine, Sydney and I, over the past 18 months.

At the start of the lockdown, Sydney was 10 months old. Between Catherine and I we would have averaged four to five trips to PoS a week since then. In that time he learned to walk, talk, wave at the staff, speak to the staff, have countless baby-cinos, and hear how his Mummy and Daddy interact with people. It’s 20 months later now. That’s an important legacy.