03/18/2026
10 Stories for 10 years
The Toughest Year
Original FB Post March 16, 2020 -
4 years and the day before the world shut down
Hard to believe it's been 4 YEARS since we opened our doors to MoCo downtown. Wow! How do we even begin to say THANK YOU to all our loyal guests, fearless staff (past & present), amazing suppliers, fellow restaurateurs, rock solid friends & family who have supported us over the years? It's been a ride with so many ups, smiles, laughs, compliments and perhaps an occasional speed bump along the way ...
Example:
There was this one very stormy and windy night when the awning half detached from the building and was hanging by a shoe string - kinda like a 100lb kite waiting to launch down Regent street to seriously harm or potentially kill a passerby. Then the power went out with a completely full restaurant (mayhem) and 911 put us on hold for two hours until we just gave up, risked our lives & ripped down the awning by ourselves with the help of some random guy walking down the road. Yeah - that was an adventure.
As we stare down this pandemic with Covid-19, it kinda feels like we are back on that night ... the awning is hanging on precariously and we don't know what to do. 911 isn't answering our calls and we are scared. BUT just like we did that night, we will dig deep and figure it out. We always do. Irony is that we FINALLY put our awnings back up this week.
For now, MoCo will continue to operate at a decreased capacity to allow for more social separation. We will continue to be stringent in our sanitation and disinfecting of high contact areas. We will also continue to offer TAKE OUT if our guests would rather pick up their meals and dine in the privacy of their own homes. Dining room hours are subject to change (ie we could close) but for now ... this is what we have decided to do. THANK YOU for your understanding and support during this very difficult time.
Original FB Post March 17, 2020 -
The Very Next Day
We did not go gentle into that good night. We really, really wanted to stay open but it seems the fates feel otherwise. We hope Moco is a place where people come to be together and celebrate in each other’s company. Unfortunately, now is not the time for that. Now’s the time to step back and do what we can to keep each other safe. We will be closed until further notice, eagerly awaiting the time that we can wine and dine, drink and sing the nights away with the one’s we cherish. See you as soon as we can!
Now… Looking Back…
If opening MoCo was about courage, then surviving this year was about endurance.
By the time we reached it, we were no longer the new kids on the block. The paint had dried, the buzz had faded, and reality had settled in. The kind of reality that doesn’t show up on opening night — rising costs, shrinking margins, broken equipment, exhausted staff, and the constant weight of wondering if tomorrow would be the day something finally broke.
And then, of course, the world broke.
The pandemic didn’t just slow us down — it pulled the rug out from under everything we had built. Overnight, a restaurant designed around gathering was told people could no longer gather. Tables sat empty. Lights stayed off. The sound of laughter and clinking glasses was replaced with silence and uncertainty.
We pivoted because we had to. Takeout. Curbside. Family meals. Gift cards. Anything to keep the doors from closing for good. Some days it felt like we were running on hope and duct tape.
But what we didn’t lose — even when everything else felt shaky — was our community.
Guests kept showing up in the ways they could. Buying meals they didn’t even need. Tipping when they didn’t have to. Leaving notes that said, “We’ll see you on the other side of this.” Our team kept coming back, even when there were easier places to go. They showed up for us the way we were trying to show up for them.
There were nights Brian and I sat at the bar after closing, staring at each other and wondering if this was the end of the dream we had fought so hard to build. There were tears. There were sleepless nights. There were moments we questioned everything.
But there was also something else — resilience.
We didn’t just survive that year. We learned what MoCo really was. Not just a restaurant. Not just a business. But a place people cared about enough to fight for.
The toughest year didn’t break us.
It proved who we were.
