36: Mike Brutto

Owner, Mimmos Restaurant

Mike Brutto is the owner of the restaurant that his parents raised him in. The business has grown a lot since they opened it in 1997 when he was three years old. Before the pandemic, Mike's role mostly consisted of management duties, taking care of any issues that arose, jumping into any necessary roles, and generally overseeing the restaurant staff. He works about 70 to 80 hours a week. The restaurant had to shut down for a week at the beginning of the pandemic, but after making adjustments to comply with COVID precaution protocol, they were able to open back up and stay open. They went through several stages of opening, from offering only takeout, to exclusively outdoor seating, to limited indoor capacity, and then back again to outside only. It was a difficult transition for the staff, as everyone had to keep relearning how to do their jobs every time another big change was made. Mike tried his best to pretend he knew what he was doing so that he could help everyone else to adapt. 

Mike lives with his girlfriend, a respiratory therapist, who also worked through the whole pandemic. They were both kept very busy, as Mike is also a part-time fitness trainer and an adjunct business professor at Alvernia University. Mike is not certain at which of his jobs he contracted COVID, but he is fairly certain it was one of them since several of his students, as well as coworkers from the restaurant also got sick. He made a full recovery though. For Mike, the biggest challenge of the pandemic was having to relearn how to work at all of his jobs, especially since, with everything shut down, work was really his only social outlet. Strangest, he says, was when the university had him teaching his class on a basketball court. The students were all spread out over the space, but they were also on Zoom at the same time so everyone could hear him and see the screen. It was very difficult for him, at times, to teach that way. 

Mike saw some positives come out of the hard times though. So many of the customers at the restaurant gave such positive feedback, thanking them for following COVID protocol and making them feel safe. He has also been able to rethink how he views friendship, seeing who would still reach out to him even when they couldn’t see each other in person, who is still around a year later. Who and what is really important has become a lot more clear to him. In general, he hopes that people will be more understanding of others. It can go such a long way, he has found, for people to just listen to on another, and things will never get better if we don’t at least try.