Lincoln Pit Stop closes briefly due to concerns about COVID, employee health

With COVID cases on the rise, both statewide and locally, Jill Frisbee made the hard decision to temporarily close the Lincoln Pit Stop.

When Frisbee first closed the Pit Stop, she began by extending the closure one or two days at a time. However, in a Facebook post on Nov. 25, she shared that the restaurant would be closed through Dec. 8. The closure is an “effort to keep our team and our customers safe and healthy,” according to the post.

“I think it’s just trying to stop the spread, keep my manpower, and I’ve got family to worry about getting this,” said Frisbee.

One of the many factors that spurred on the Pit Stop closure was ensuring that staff could stay healthy, said Frisbee. During the closures earlier this year, Frisbee said it was a lot of work for limited staff.

“They were trying to answer the phone and cook and ring people up and deliver. It was a lot of leg work,” Frisbee said and noted that having any staff out sick could make that level of service even harder.

The Pit Stop’s posts on Facebook drew an outpouring of community support, including offers to buy gift certificates to help provide some income during the closure. Frisbee said if people are interested in getting gift certificates, to keep watching Facebook and the Blackfoot Valley Dispatch.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Frisbee finished cleaning the perishables out of the restaurant and distributed them around town. “I really didn’t have a whole bunch of anything,” Frisbee said, adding that she gave most of what she had to Bushwhackers, who had shared their food with the Pit Stop during the mandated restaurant closures earlier this year.

Frisbee said that when the Pit Stop does reopen, it will only be for curbside pick-up. “I’ll wait and see kinda what the market bears. I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m playing it by ear, see how things go and go from there,” she said.

“My biggest thing is it was hard to close because employees don’t get paid unless they work,” Frisbee said. “There’s no right or wrong answers, I don’t think. You gotta try and see what works. Hopefully something does.”