What’s it like to operate a new restaurant during a pandemic? Despite myriad challenges, local chefs, restaurateurs and cafe owners have weathered the ongoing restrictions in the industry and found success along the way. Here’s a look at some of their stories.
Merrimack’s Big Kahunas Cafe & Grill, which also offers barbecue catering options with an island-style flair, has been established for just under 10 years. According to co-owner and chef Jum-Pa Spooner, it was a customer who first told him and his wife, Amanda Persijn-Spooner, about the newly vacant kitchen in an adjoining space of Shooter’s Outpost in Hooksett.
“We were playing around with the idea of a second location … [and] we already had the smokehouse menu lined up from our catering,” Spooner said. “So we just kind of said ‘OK,’ and then Covid kind of happened simultaneously with it.”
