“At first, we thought maybe it would be a short-term thing,” says Hal B. Klein, a food critic for Pittsburgh magazine, of the first time that Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf shut down indoor dining in the state’s restaurants and bars. The measure went into effect at 12:01 AM on March 16, 2020, shortly after the coronavirus began spreading across the United States.

He’s not the only one who, in the pandemic’s early days, couldn’t imagine how long the measures would persist, nor how lasting the damage would be to the restaurant industry. In One Long Shift in the Weeds: Covid’s Impact on Pittsburgh’s Service Industry, a documentary made available free online on November 24, interviewees from across the industry make it clear how unimaginable it was that they might face a long-term shutdown. (For those familiar with Pittsburgh’s restaurants: there are interviews with Jamilka Borges of Wild Child, Sean Enright of Spork, Spencer Warren of the Warren, Liz Boyd of Station, Sarah Powers of the Forge, Cat Cannon and Cecil Usher of Mindful Hospitality Group, and Jason Mottillo of Restaurant Depot.)

“They kept saying two weeks — we’re just going to be closed for two weeks,” says a former bartender. Establishments shuttered as instructed, but many didn’t think to begin transforming themselves for the long haul — they simply hunkered down, waiting it out. Eventually, some restaurants would turn themselves into high-end grocery stores or purveyors of to-go meals, while others would close, many permanently.