Closings haven’t diminished The Henry’s popularity.

“I’ve just had Covid,” says Mary Jo.

Mary Jo (not her real name) is 19, fit, gregarious, embarking on college life. But it’s been a rough couple of months. She, her mom, dad, sister, sister’s boyfriend, and her grandmother all recently caught the coronavirus.

“I actually have no symptoms,” she says. “I am fully recovered. But here’s how it happened: June 30th I had a stuffy nose. And a headache. So I’m like, ‘Okay, it’s one of my summer allergies,’ and my parents were like, ‘Yes, you’re fine.’ So then I called my doctor, to get sinus medication. And she said, ‘Well you work in a restaurant, so let’s get you tested.’

Everybody’s moved outside, by order. Even so, upwards of eight Coronado restaurants have been temporarily closed because of outbreaks.

“So I took the test, and it came out negative, and I continued to work, and then around the 4th of July, my sister started feeling sick, my dad started feeling sick, my sister’s boyfriend, who also works at my mom’s restaurant, started feeling sick. But they were all super different symptoms. Like, my dad had what I had, stuffy nose, my mom had a fever, and then my grandma had stomach aches, and my sister’s boyfriend had a fever. So all of us took off work and we got tested again, and then all of our tests came back positive. So we all have been quarantined. I’ve been quarantining with my dad and my mom, and my grandma lives in the back house. And she’s 86. She’s not doing too well. And my sister’s boyfriend, who is 30, has lost 10 pounds. He sweats the sheets every night.

“I wasn’t scared before this hit us. I thought ‘Oh, it won’t affect me. And if it does, I’m healthy, I’ll be able to bounce back.’ I never really thought about giving it to my parents or my grandma. In the beginning, they were all blaming me because I have been the most social. But my grandma has been to the store with me. We go on drives every morning. She’s seen people. If she thought I had brought it in, she’d be mad, but she knows she’s put herself out there, too.

Sign on one closed eatery.

“My stuffy nose and headache quickly went away. I fully recovered within like a week. I stay away from my grandma, even though I don’t think I could re-catch it from her. But you never know. Mine was just like any old stuffy nose. But that’s the scary part, because a lot of people don’t know they have it, and don’t even have the possibility of getting tested to find out.”

Meanwhile, Mary Jo’s gearing up for her first college year, studying in front of a laptop screen. So what about a social life? “Friends are huge to me. So if I’m not allowed to see them for two weeks, it’s a little hard for my mental health. I don’t have a boyfriend, so I have no idea, but these times have definitely made it harder to get boyfriends and make new relationships. In my group, none of us is really looking, but I think not attending the party scene at college or all of that frat life has made the boys go a little crazy.”

Even signs of affection like hugging, she says, look like history.

“I think it’s elbows for a good long time.”