LANCASTER - After working 40 hours during the week, many look forward to some rest and relaxation on the weekend. But Amy Bright is just getting started at 40 hours. The Trader's Cafe owner regularly works 100 hours a week.
"I've done it all my life," Bright said. "It's fine. It doesn't really bother me at all. There's always something to do. Always."
Bright took ownership 11 years ago after her mother, Frances Bright, died. Her mother had been in the restaurant business since 1976 when she owned the White Cottage on High Street. The elder Bright opened Trader's Cafe at 416 N. Columbus St. in 1991.
"We have a lot of local, especially a lot of older clientele that have been coming here for years," Bright said. "We have a lot of regulars that know each other. And we have new people all the time and we have families that like regular home-cooked food. It's not fast-food. They want to be able to get a home-cooked meal, a hot meal."
Bright said the two most popular menu items are the baked steak dinner and the open-faced roast beef dinner.
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"Then we have a daily meal which is a double-cheeseburger, fries and a drink," she said. "If you're not coming for the hot meals, you're probably coming for the double-cheeseburger. The double-cheeseburgers are kind of a tradition. That stems back from the White Cottage when Cecil Fields started the White Cottage (in 1934). His hamburgers were very well known throughout Lancaster."
Bright said items like the hamburgers and potato salad are still made exactly the way Fields used to make them.
Before returning to Lancaster to help her mother with the restaurant before taking it over herself, Bright worked at the University of Kentucky's hospital for 23 years.
Bright said her mother is her inspiration and that her mother is still the backbone of the family even though she's been gone for 11 years.
"She was just the strongest woman you could ever meet," Bright said. "She only weighed about 95 pounds most of the time, but she was such a fighter and tough. To lose her 11 years ago was devastating. She loved this place. Loved it. It was everything to her."
Like many other businesses, Bright said business is down because of the coronavirus.
"People are still leery of coming out," she said. "People are still very hesitant. You have three different groups. Ones who don't want to come at all that are still very scared or very cautious. You have ones that are kind of in the middle that are more optimistic and will try it for the first time. And then you, of course, have the ones that will come regardless."
Bright said it has been expensive for all restaurants to reopen because of the things the state mandates them to do to lower the spread of coronavirus. That includes buying cleaning supplies, mask, gloves and hiring additional staffing, along with spending time deep cleaning.
"It's real expensive," Bright said. "I know restaurants everywhere are struggling. It's very concerning. How long will this be? Is this going to be forever? This is really going to change the game for restaurants in general."
Like some other restaurant owners, Bright said it has been difficult finding employees because of unemployment benefits and the extra $600 those on unemployment get each week.
"Absolutely," she said. "We have been desperately seeking a dishwasher and a morning prep person and have been unsuccessful to this point. I have had people come in and directly tell me they don't want to take the job yet until this $600 extra money they get every week stops. Because they're making more doing that than if they come here for these part-time jobs I have. They don't want to take any kind of job."
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Bright said that scenario is hurting the economy more than it is helping it.
"To continue to give these people $600 week after week after week for basically sitting there doing nothing and not making any effort, is really making it hard," she said.
Away from work, Bright likes to spend time with her nieces and nephews. She said she may retire in five years after they graduate from high school.
jbarron@gannett.com
740-304-9296
Twitter: @JeffDBarron
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June 29, 2020 at 06:17PM
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Aces of Trades: Trader's Cafe owner Amy Bright is not afraid of working 100 hours per week - Lancaster Eagle Gazette
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