Robby Bancroft on Pacifica, Breakers Restaurant, and Making Music: 9 Months Later
Robby Bancroft. Photo: Kevin Burleigh.
Back in February, I sat down for an interview with Robby Bancroft in the restaurant that he and his father own. We talked about his life in the restaurant business, his rewarding work with the Pacifica Resource Center, and the new plans for his heavy new band, Obsolete Man. He was feeling confident, ready to take on the world, and like he had finally figured out everything in his life.
Literally a month to the day after we did this interview, the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States. There had been reported cases before, but nothing like this. Cities around the country began to shut down, with California becoming one of the states hit the worst (as of today, there are 1.29 million cases of COVID-19 being reported in California alone).
The restaurant and hospitality industries have been among the hardest hit in the United States, with nearly 100,000 businesses closing their doors since March of this year. Many have completely gone out of business, never to return. While the pandemic presented a brand new challenge for Bancroft and his team at Breakers, they’ve only continued to innovate.
In this follow-up interview, Bancroft and I discussed how this has changed so rapidly over the last several months, the new plans for both Breakers and his band (Obsolete Man) as the pandemic rages, and how he has adapted to the ongoing change. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
The last time that we met, I think, was a month before this [pandemic] happened.
Yeah, I think we talked in February. And I told you that I had my whole life figured out. And I used the wrong word: successful. And I said that I was waiting for something bad to happen. (laughs)
Oh my god, I think you did.
I also said that nothing could stop the Obsolete Man release. (laughs)
Oh my god. Yes, that was February 9th, 2020. And then a month to the day after that, I think, everything started shutting down.
Yeah, we closed March 17th. We thought it was going to be for two weeks, and it’s been over seven months.
Yeah. Holy shit.
Thanks for coming to the interview. (laughs)
I feel like we’ve all read a lot of coronavirus stories, we’ve all read about small businesses and how this has impacted them. What was the story specifically for Breakers? I feel like it’s pretty universal across the board, from what I’ve seen, but what was it specifically for you guys?
It seems like lots of local restaurant owners and local Pacificans were saying, “oh, before this we weren’t really doing too well, and now we’re really not doing well. But to answer your question, for the health and safety of our Breakers staff and our local community, we said, “we’re closed temporarily” We really thought it was going to be a two week shutdown. Foolishly, I thought, “oh, the government’s gonna help, there’s gonna be a vaccine, you know, just trust the experts.” When the NBA cancelled the season, that’s when it got real for me. I was at work and I was like, “oh, so this is a lot more serious” I was getting extra anxious and kept talking to my Dad about extra precautions.
Two weeks turned into a month, a month turned into three months, and that’s when we started applying [for PPP]. It reminded me a lot of the recession, but now it’s a lot worse because everyone is going through it. Still, we thought, “okay we can handle this” But you can’t handle it when there’s so much uncertainty and everything changes so fast. So finally it was just like, “okay, so we really just have to decide what’s best for us.”
So that’s what we ended up doing. We stayed closed, gave what was in our kitchen to our staff and encouraged them to file for unemployment. We also helped connect them to local social services. The folks who live in Pacifica got connected to the PRC (Pacifica Resource Center), the folks in San Mateo got connected to their version of that, and then a lot of our kitchen staff…they don’t really trust the government, so a lot of them didn’t have any options, and they went to other places for work. Some of our staff is working at other restaurants in Pacifica and waiting for us to reopen and come back. There really is no “one solution fits all scenario” for the restaurant industry but that's what we did.
Excluding chain restaurants, a number of restaurants have switched and started doing outdoor dining, as well as takeout and delivery services. For a number of smaller businesses, though, this isn’t always the case. Was outdoor dining ever an option you guys had considered?
[When we closed], we were thinking, “do we have the resources to shift to that?” We live in Pacifica, so eighty percent of the time it’s foggy, cold or rainy. So it’s like, do we just do takeout and have three to five staff members? Or do we do takeout plus outdoor seating and bring eight to ten [staff members] back? Do they even want to come back? Do they feel safe coming back? Do we feel safe having them come back?
Plus, we’re not a quick-service restaurant; we’re a full service breakfast and lunch restaurant, so there’s a big difference. Things that you’re reading that work for the pizza place and the deli down the street doesn’t work for a “full-service breakfast with hash browns” type place.
Eventually, relief funds and unemployment run out and you’ve got to do something, so we’re in the process of doing some form of a reopening. But for outdoor dining, we don’t have the luxury of having a large parking lot to use. Our outdoor seating on the side…we had to think about this: is opening a usually 110-125 capacity restaurant with outdoor side seating for maybe 30 people worth it? Does it make sense? Especially with the weather?
You see a lot of the popular places opening up, they’ll have a wait for two hours, and then it starts raining and everyone leaves. That’s soul-crushing. We are working on a permit for the two parking spots right in front of Breakers, so hopefully that will come through. Now that we’re prepared and making steps towards reopening, we’re gonna have some outdoor seating, you have to do outdoor seating if you want to stay open. The place across the street has outdoor seating; they’re open four days a week and they’re doing fine. Sales are obviously down, but fine. If you had a parking lot [that could host outdoor seating] you are probably in better shape now then you were five months ago.
A lot of people were saying that, regardless of whether or not they were able to stay open and do outdoor dining, everyone was trying to apply for a loan or PPP, just for some relief so that they didn’t have to worry about their workers and they could take care of them. How soon after this began did you apply for relief?
Robby Bancroft. Photo: Kevin Burleigh.
There were two main forms of relief at the beginning of the pandemic, and there’s still one that we’re working on. There was the PPP, which is the Paycheck Protection Program and the EIDL which is Economic Injury Disaster Loan. The weird thing, though, is the way you described it is not how it was. You’d think, you get the Paycheck Protection Program, you get to stay home and you’re safe. And it’s like, no…the government wanted you to bring everyone back, to a place that I just described as not operating at full-capacity, probably shouldn’t be opened because it’s not safe and not prepared to be open during a pandemic at this capacity.
It was good that there was some relief, but the way that it was intended to be used didn’t fit the needs of the restaurant industry as a whole, because it involved bringing people back to do something that can technically be, at that time, super deadly. At that time, we didn’t know if it (COVID-19) could be airborne, we didn’t know if it could live on surfaces. So the loan was just meant to come from the government, go through the restaurant owners, and go to employees who don’t necessarily feel safe coming off of unemployment to come back and work in a place that doesn’t have enough business, because we can’t seat enough people indoors.
I think that what everybody assumed was going to happen was that, since everyone needed to stay inside, those loans were going to be paid to these businesses so that they could stay closed and their workers can stay employed and everyone can be safe. If these businesses have to pay it back one day, we’ll work something out, but the point is, everyone thought they would just be paying people to stay home and be safe. What you’re saying, though…
I think other countries did that.
But not us.
Robby Bancroft in Pacifica. Photo: Kevin Burleigh.
Yeah, they theoretically paid you to have people come back and do nothing since you weren't open. (laughs)
We’re doing this interview on November 7th (the day the 2020 Presidential Election was called). As of yesterday, what was the plan in terms of operating Breakers? Would you say it’s on an indefinite hiatus, to put it into band terminology? Or is it that you have a full plan going forward? What is the next step?
Yeah, one of the main reasons that I wanted to have this check-in right now is that, when we first talked, I told you how everything was great. I was like, “oh, after the first five years, you’re technically a success, we’re now in the sixth year so you can start doing more, making profits.” We thought about opening up a second location. Now, all of that has been completely put on hold and Breakers is sinking now. We’re bleeding. So now it’s about patching up the hole and getting it back in to shape to the point where we can reopen.
Some good news that happened while we were closed was that we were able to finish renegotiating a buyout of our business partner’s shares. That’s been the thing that’s been keeping me going; my Dad and I are now the sole owners. It was like a marriage, so now we’re officially divorced. (laughs) It was a lot of late nights and early mornings with my Dad, my girlfriend, and I talking about what this [scenario] looks like now, in a “Breakers 2.0”, either during or after COVID-19.
We had multiple talks about what needed to be done in order to reopen, and what would be nice to have once we keep going. For example, what needs to be done is updates to our prices, and making sure that it’s really easy to come in and order, since people aren’t sitting down and staring at a menu anymore. It needs to be fast, quick, quality service, but we don’t want it to feel like you’re coming into a half-assed “We’re just surviving” kind of experience. We’re thinking, “what kind of construction do we have going on? What is the experience going to be like when people come in? How are they going to be greeted?” It’s almost like you’re going into a…you know how when you’re at Disneyland, and even though you’re just waiting in line for the ride, it’s still part of the ride? It’s like that.
Yeah, it’s like the experience begins in the queue for the ride.
Exactly, so what is it going to be like when people are going to walk in? I’d say that right around my Dad’s birthday, we shifted into gear. I took some time to do some serious soul searching, and then we came back and got to work. It wasn’t that easy, but it was like, “okay, we’re working towards reopening now.” We started calling our cooks, calling our servers, thinking about how to get in there and start cleaning. Thinking about the steps we need to take. We had to update our POS systems. Our phones were turned off, the Internet was turned off. It’s so strange to be opening up the same restaurant for a second time, except this time, we’re coming from a place where we have way more experience.
I feel like I’m always jinxing myself when I tell you stuff like this (laughs) but we’re gonna try to reopen on the 18th. We had aspirations of online ordering, an app, curbside pickup, but then you start to realize that all of the overplanning might come more from anxiety than anything, so we just thought about getting to Phase One.
Right now it's just getting people to show up and order, or having them call in an order over the phone. If we can manage to do that until the end of the year, we’ll hopefully be in better shape. For now, we’ve been able to set up where you would walk in, you get hand sanitizer, and then there are three stations, six feet apart. You order and you go out the side door. Then you come back and pick up through the “Pass Out” window.
I looked at what other restaurants were doing, I took what I liked and I left what I didn’t like, and then thought, “what can we actually do in our building?” A lot of places have just one door, that acts as both an “In” and “Out” But we have two doors, so I started thinking about how we could apply that to the experience and make people feel as safe as possible.
Within the next week or so, we’ll set up our ordering system, cut down the menu a little bit, but not by much. We’ll be getting food and supplies back in there, turning stuff back on, all those things take longer than you’d expect and it costs money.
People forget that it’s not just “oh, a bunch of people aren’t going to work” There’s a full supply chain of food that comes in at a certain time. When you’re turning on something for the first time in awhile, you might just be flicking a switch, but it takes time to reboot an entire phone system, a POS system, and making sure your Internet is fully up and running.
Cleaning the walk-in fridge, cleaning all of the things that were left in the kitchen…everything. When we came back, there was still leftover syrup in the syrup mixers. It really felt like going onto an abandoned ship, looking around and going, “oh shit, this is how these people lived.” It was like a snapshot in time before the pandemic, you know? It was really odd. We paused on March 17th, and then we went back in a couple of months later. But we were like, if we’re gonna clean it, we’re only gonna clean it once. A couple of people volunteered to help and we all cleaned (safely). It was very surreal; very sad, but also happy at the same time. I think the happiness outweighed it though; seeing my Dad back in the groove and feeling like we were actually working towards “living the dream” again was a lot better feeling than just sitting at home and thinking about it.
There are so many new guidelines that need to be followed due to this pandemic. What other new guidelines have you come across, and has it affected in any way any of the food that you serve? For example, if an Italian restaurant is open now, they can’t have bread baskets on the table. Are there any new accommodations you have to put in place food-wise? Additionally, is there any kind of food that isn’t available in the supply chain anymore? If so, how are you working around that?
As far as the guidelines, we keep double-checking that people are far enough apart. And not just customers, but the employees as well.
We cleared out all of the tables and all of the booths, so now when you walk in, it’s very open. It almost feels like you’re waiting in line at Disneyland for something like I said. We even have the rope dividers. I think that if we have this sense of calmness and cleanliness and show people that we know what we’re doing, then people will feel that on the other end. That’s only going to result in a better experience and better business.
One of the things my Dad and I were debating about was the ketchup. We were talking about whether or not we wanted to squeeze [the bottles] into to-go containers, or if we wanted to spend a little more money on the ketchup packets. It’s those kinds of conversations that you would never think about having in a full-service breakfast restaurant.
And then you think about syrup packets. You want that hot syrup going on the food, so we started thinking about how we can give that kind of experience. We’re thinking constantly about little things like that. Do we fully cook the hash browns, or do we have a little thing that says, “Hey! Here’s how Breakers recommends you finish off the hash browns!” We keep thinking about where people are going to eat, because we don’t have a lot of spaces available outside. We might have a little treasure map to hand out to people, where we can say something like “come eat in Rockaway!” and then create a guide to where people can go and enjoy their food, marking spots with little X’s. There’s a lot of benches and cool little parking lot areas that travelers and maybe even some locals might not know about.
As of 8:25 AM, we have a new President-Elect. CNN projected that Joe Biden will be the forty-sixth President of the United States, ending Donald Trump’s presidency. Not to give this a ton of weight or partisanship, but we just had a President who knew about the coronavirus and downplayed it. The daily number of coronaviruses cases today is the highest number it has ever been in the U.S. We’ve lost 250,000 people to this virus. Businesses are closing. Now, we have a President who has said that he would be starting a coronavirus task force as early as Monday morning. How does that make you feel, as a business owner, that within the next few months, Breakers will be back on track and doing better? Does it instill any confidence, or do you have concerns?
I asked my girlfriend that this morning. I said, “I wonder if that means that they’re going to pass through more relief.” There was a relief package that passed through the House, and then I think the Republicans or whoever ignored it for a couple months and finally said, “oh, we’re off on vacation, we’ll be back on the 9th of December”
On the topic of that relief package, I keep thinking about whether or not it’s going to come through or continue to be held up now that we have a new President. Like, does that stuff just get passed? (editor's note, the relief package initially passed by the House of Representatives is more likely to pass the Senate if both run off elections in Georgia are won by the democratic challengers) Are they going to be able to negotiate better? And what kind of relief is going to come out of that? If that gets approved, I’m confident that, eventually, it will help us and affect us in a positive manner. But I think the funds that are specifically coming through for the restaurant industry are going to be going through to places that are hit the hardest during the winter, and the places that are women and minority-owned businesses that didn’t have a chance to grow, or maybe didn’t have the best relationships with their banks pre pandemic. A lot of businesses that got the PPP, like… I still feel like that’s coming from a place of privilege to be able to do that in general, just being able to apply for that.
I definitely feel better about this administration, because the previous administration said [COVID-19] would be gone by Easter. (laughs) Our Easter sucked, and we missed all of our best Holidays business wise: Mother’s Day, Memorial Day…that’s when Breakers made its money. Spring and Summer was our prime time. Luckily, breakfast and lunch restaurants do pretty well during the holidays. That’s when people are traveling and they’re bringing their Mom and Dad out to their favorite breakfast spots. But who knows if that's even going to be a thing this year? Pacifica supports its locals. And we’re locals; We get messages everyday, asking us if we’re closed and if we’re okay. I think we’ll be okay, just gonna need a little more help from Pacifica.
Overall, I think it’s a good move, Biden/Harris. I hope it helps.
Last time we talked, you were telling me all about your work with the Pacifica Resource Center. What’s been happening since we last spoke?
That’s another crazy life-changing thing that I didn’t see coming. Literally everything we talked about last time is different now. Basically, I was with PRC for five years, if you include the year that I spent on the board. Half of that article was about how wonderful it is, and how if you need help, you can come see us. So none of that has changed; I’m still an ambassador to no end. But during the initial shutdown, I had to take a leave of absence. I was going through some mental health struggles, and things were getting pretty intense for me both personally and professionally. There were numerous reasons, but a lot of the tension was because of all the stress I was clearly dealing with during the pandemic.
After some hard conversations with my support group, and then ultimately going back to the Resource Center after being on leave, it just…it’s not that it felt different, but I think that coronavirus made me check myself, and almost be like, “what will matter in the long run? Can I still impact the community in a way that I feel like I’m making a difference? And I do necessarily have to be in the office, employed, 40 hours a week, at the Resource Center, to make that difference?” My boss and I had a lot of hard talks, and ultimately, I decided it might be best if I move on. But I am still supportive of the work they do of course.
So who knows? I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. We might team up on some stuff. It doesn’t matter if I’m getting a paycheck, because I’m always going to support the Resource Center.
What is the plan for Obsolete Man moving forward? If you can’t do physical shows, are you planning on doing anything virtual?
We’re sitting on some content, and we’re thinking about whether or not we put it out just to put it out there, or if we should wait. We had to cancel our two EP release shows, which was a total fucking bummer. Right now, we’re all unemployed. Some people are getting job offers. Scott moved, Devan was let go, Gino was let go, he was a server in the city. We kinda had to go, “let’s pause the band for a minute, make sure that we’re all okay for now.” Now we’re starting to talk about what we want to do and what we want to focus on. Without getting into too many details, we’ve decided to continue to work on the second EP, that was already kinda in the works. Now we have virtual band practice once a week. It’s mainly just Gino and I finishing the lyrics, because luckily, before the pandemic, we had most of the music done. I think the last time we all met in person was on March 9th when we shot the footage that would be used in the “Violence” music video. We just need to catch up on some lyrics, and you don’t necessarily need to be in the same room to do that.
For the most part, we’ve come to terms with the fact that our first release is done. For better or worse, the world knows about us now. We’re just gonna focus on the second EP. The studio we record in is decked out to be safer and they’ve actually been recording live bands. You can even stay there if you want, just to cut down on exposure and travel. The goal is to get the workings of the second EP together, and then maybe record early next year. I’m not too sure though. We’re not in a rush, but that’s definitely our main focus now.
Have you guys talked about doing a virtual live show? As someone who pays attention to bands and their online trends, have you seen any of the live streams that Underoath or Anberlin, or Story of the Year have done?
I do think that after we get this second EP together, if it has to be an all-virtual release, I think with the [new Presidential] administration and the world being more used to this, we may have a new reality of masks, social distancing, or self-quarantining before we get in a room [to do a virtual show]. There’s definitely streaming in our future. There has to be. At least for our own sake. We all want to be able to get together and play these songs live. Playing the songs even with just each other would be a win.
I know that Pinup [Productions] did a stream, and stuff like that is super cool. I think we’d be into that once we are not focused on the second EP. You have to be thinking about how to perform virtually. I think bands are more than just songs on Spotify. I know that they’re more than that. You have to build worlds. You have to build experiences. We have the tools, but we just have to think about it all a little bit differently.
We talked about Breakers, the Resource Center, and Obsolete Man. But you also have a podcast now; what’s your podcast about?
So on Halloween, I honestly had a bit of a mental health breakdown. All of my plans just got scrapped. I had this big plan to come back to Instagram, I had all of these pics and posts ready, and then I was going through some personal shit and started being really hard on myself. I kept thinking about launching this podcast. I would appear on podcasts here and there, but they weren’t my own show. I had all the artwork, I had this website that I never launched, I was always in these periods of time, where I would never hit “send” and finally be done with it.
My friend Tygarjas is on the Board at the Resource Center, and he’s now running for City Council. I was giving him little tips and tricks but the thing that I thought that I could do that wouldn’t feel like such a project, and I thought would really help him, was to interview him on Zoom, so I said, “fuck it, I’m going to just start the podcast.” I called him, and he said he was down. We did it as a Zoom interview, and then I stayed up until 4 AM that night and got it on Spotify, Apple, etc. I felt so happy and so relieved that this thing I’d been thinking about doing for like ten years now finally came together. We did it, and I’ve been riding that high for the last week.
It’s called Robby’s World. It’s very niche, especially with the first episode since it was targeted specifically towards Pacifica residents. It went really well, and the reach and the engagement was way better than I had expected. I went to Round Table a couple of days after it aired, and someone there was like, “oh, I saw your podcast!”. I’m going to try to do a weekly podcast focusing mainly on people in Pacifica. A lot of businesses in Pacifica are going to need that extra reach, and they just don’t know how to get it. They can come on my show and I can talk to them about what they’re going through, what their hopes, dreams and fears are. Episode one is in the bank, and I’ll have another one out in the next couple of days. Stay tuned for more Robby’s World!
Nice! Any resources, websites, or links that you want to plug?
ILoveBreakers.com will have the most up to date information for the restaurant.
You can still support the Resource Center, and if you ever need help, please don’t hesitate to contact them at PacResourceCenter.org.
Obsolete Man has some merch for sale and our EP is available online at ObsoleteManSF.com or our Bandcamp, ObsoleteMan.Bandcamp.Com.
For anything and everything in Robby’s World, visit Robbys.World.
All my socials are @TheRealRobbyB. My next plan is getting back on Instagram! I haven’t posted on Instagram since I started the band’s rollout back in March. It’s such a big deal, but it’s also not a big deal when it comes to posting. I hate it (laughs).
Breakers is now open and serving takeout only 7am-3pm; closed on Tuesdays.
Additionally, you can watch/listen to all of the episodes of Robby’s World here.
Catch the latest Robby’s World Episode 004 with Mary Bier (City Council/Prevention Partnership) below:
Robby Bancroft
www.robbybancroft.com
www.facebook.com/therealrobbyb
Twitter: @therealrobbyb
Instagram: @therealrobbyb
