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KINGSTON — While Mother’s Day is typically one of the best days of the year for business at the Pierce Street Deli, things have to be a bit different this year.

According to owner Ken Bond, what is typically a fancy event with carving stations and multiple courses has had to turn, like everything else in the time of COVID-19, into a purely takeout event.

“Everything is curbside,” Bond said. “But we’re still doing a nice dinner.”

That nice dinner, a $35 meal for two, includes two steaks, two chicken breasts, two shrimp kabobs, potatoes, vegetables and dessert. When ordering, customers had the option to either have the meal totally cooked through, or to be started by the restaurant and finish cooking at home.

It’s a far cry from what Mother’s Day normally looks like.

“We usually have two seatings,” Bond said. “It’s one of our biggest days typically.

“We just can’t do the big giant buffet,” he went on.

This is the second holiday that has been effectively shuttered since the start of COVID-19, with Easter having similar issues last month. According to Bond, the Pierce Street Deli ran a similar promotion for that holiday, as well.

“We did a more casual menu for Easter,” Bond explained. “We did very well with that.”

Bond suggested that he’s seen fewer orders for Mother’s Day than Easter, which he said could be caused by an increased number of restaurants offering similar take-out meals for holidays, while Bond says his restaurant was “ahead of the game” for offering a large curbside spread in the early days of the quarantine.

There is also some amount of concern over the safety of spending Mother’s Day with mom. According to Dr. Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, you should only go visit your mother for the holiday if your county has been moved to the “yellow” stage of Pennsylvania’s phased reopening. As of right now, all of Northeastern Pennsylvania is in the red, meaning Levine cautions against going to celebrate the holiday with mom. Levine suggests celebrating the holiday virtually instead.

When asked about plans for future holidays, such as Father’s Day, which is June 21, Bond says there is not currently a clear plan about what to do. Partially because of the difference in menu that goes along with Father’s Day — Bond suggested many Father’s Day plans involve a barbecue — and due to a hope that things are better by then.

Bond said that, once social distancing guidelines ease a bit, the Pierce Street Deli is in a unique position to accommodate guests safely, with a “very open dining area.”

Reach Patrick Kernan at 570-991-6386 or on Twitter @PatKernan