And he’s like, “Who’s here?” I’m just rattling off who’s in the building, his guys. Joe Torre comes in the restaurant, it’s packed, and he waits at the door for me, and I’m walking into his table. “Hey, Joe, I need a table.” And we’re walking through. Don Zimmer, Joe Torre, Mattingly, I mean, they all just came in, one at a time. There was a rain-out game, and the phone started ringing. So it would always be me, one server, and restaurant would be closed, but we would take care of him. And he would always come in after the game, so it was always late. Joe Torre was the manager, and he was a regular customer at Davio’s when they were in town. Going back to the Davio’s days, I became a Yankees fan. Tell me about your most memorable customers over the years. Joe Torre helps a fan who asked for a selfie. We were just trying to do something, just to keep us going. So I would deliver food to all these houses for a cooking class-slash-wine dinner, and each course would be where the winemaker would talk about it. We did a few virtual wine dinners, which was great. And then we closed again and waited until we were able to go full capacity. Then we closed, then we reopened for minimal dining, where we had all the plastic panels up. People preordered and we tried to do takeout where we ran it out to their cars. I volunteered for everything, not that I wanted to get out of the house, but I wanted to do something. Then we reopened - my dog is attacking me, I’m sorry. So the restaurant was getting remodeled, and we were closed for a week. We had closed for renovation of the restaurant a week before COVID. How did how did COVID affect your career? So what did you do during that period? You know, eventually they’ll get to yours. If they can’t get into that restaurant, they’ll go to another. But I think the more restaurants, the better, because people are going to come down. At first, I always thought that, sometimes it’s too many restaurants. They’re just large restaurants and, you know, they fill them. I look at Davio’s in the Seaport: That thing is a beast. You can’t make a small restaurant anymore. I mean, you go down the Seaport now, it’s just so big. How has the Boston food scene changed since you were first working as a server? And just walk around, because it’s a great place to walk around. I always tell people either Uber in or maybe park at one of the outskirts, you know, the parking lots. So, imagine that little area is closed off. They’re starting to a film movie at Bova’s, Ben Affleck’s movie. And they’re not letting you by because they’re worried they have to take the building down piece by piece. They have barriers, and you have to walk down. We had a building collapse, where a roof caved in - the building was vacant - and the street’s been closed for over three weeks now. Closing the tunnel on the weekends, that makes it hard to get into the city. I think it’s more people just moving into the city. These apartment buildings, they just keep going up and up. I think it’s just gotten a little more congested. There weren’t as many restaurants, you know? You could still walk around. How has the North End changed over the years? At the end of the day, it helps everybody. … Maybe it’s a minimum maybe it’s less seating outside but still some seating. You have the emergency vehicles, which is hard to do. I always said that it would be a great street to just close off and have people walk it, but then you have the fire trucks. I always thought Hanover Street should have been a closed street where they had sidewalk seating. … Even the residents, I think they’re going to miss it. But I thought it was really nice for the North End. So it could be an inconvenience for them. It’s tough because you lose parking spots. Looking at it from the residents’ point of view: Sure. What’s your take on the outdoor dining situation in the North End? And they approached me and said: “Any chance you can come work with us? We really could use the help.” So they caught me at a weak moment, I guess. They were from East Boston the Yebba family. Then I went up to Teresa’s in North Reading.
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