How a Small Bar Battled to Survive the Coronavirus: An Update

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2020

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran. When Jack Nicas, a technology reporter for The Times, first moved to California five years ago, he set about finding a local bar of choice. Unpretentious, cheap and relaxed, the Hatch fit the bill. Over six months during the coronavirus pandemic, he charted the fortunes of the bar and its staff members as the lockdown threatened to upend the success of the small business. Today, Jack checks in with the bar’s owner — Louwenda Kachingwe, known to everyone as Pancho — to see what has happened since we last heard from him in the fall. Guest: Jack Nicas, a technology reporter for The New York Times. For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here. Background reading: Here’s the full article about the Oakland tavern and its staff members as they try to weather the fallout from the pandemic. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Michael. This week, the Daily Is Revisiting are favorite episodes of the year,
0:05.8	listening back and hearing what's happened in the time since they first ran.
0:11.0	Today, the Hatch. It's Monday, December 28th.
0:17.6	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily.
0:22.9	Across the country, nearly 100,000 small businesses have now shut down permanently because of the pandemic.
0:35.4	Federal relief funding has stalled, and yet some cities are now preparing for a second round of shutdowns.
0:43.6	Today, for the past six months, my colleague, Jack Niggas, has been documenting the experience of a single neighborhood bar in the Bay Area of California
0:58.1	to understand the consequences for its owner, bartender, and cleaner.
1:04.1	It's Tuesday, October 6th.
1:24.1	Jack, tell me about the Hatch.
1:26.3	The Hatch is the classic neighborhood bar. I moved to Oakland in late 2015, and one of the first things you do when you move to a new city is you find your local dive bar.
1:38.8	At least if you're me, and pretty quickly, I knew it would be the Hatch.
1:43.7	It's just a really perfect neighborhood bar, in my view. It's unpretentious, relaxed. The beer is cheap. You can always find a seat.
1:53.6	I ended up just spending a lot of time there. My friends and I would gather around on even tables upstairs and spend long nights talking until close.
2:04.0	We'd watch the NBA playoffs on a bed sheet that hung from the ceiling. We just made it our place.
2:11.2	Good morning. Thank you for joining us here on Mornings on 2. It is Tuesday, March 17th.
2:21.7	Vars, nightclubs, and restaurants closed amidst the bomb.
2:25.3	So when the pandemic hit, and I realized that small businesses across the country were going to close, my mind went to the Hatch.
2:31.7	And I decided, let me follow this place for a few months and see what happens.
2:37.4	And so I check in on the Hatch on March 17th. This is the day after Gavin Newsom,
2:42.5	California's governor, has ordered the state's bars and restaurants to close.
2:51.8	When I get there, I find the bar's owner who went to Kachinguay, everyone calls him Poncho.
	...

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