The lights are off at the Beer Hall and it’s raining outside. Normally, I can’t stand the abrasive lighting at Jack’s Abby, so that’s probably why it’s the first thing that catches my attention. I look around and think, “Well, no one’s here; why would they keep it lit?” The slimmed-down staff keeping their distance twists my heart. I want to hug them all.
We can’t get close, but because I’m a regular here, they still know how to make me feel welcome. “Laura made you buffalo tenders, so you better like them,” hospitality director Megan Parker-Gray teases.
My order is ready and waiting when I arrive. Meanwhile, Jamie Chapman is folding pizza boxes. As an administrator, she’s usually stationed at her command post of a desk in the middle of the office, managing invoices, taking calls, and wearing roughly a thousand other hats. Folding pizza boxes is just one more task: precisely a week ago, co-founder Jack Hendler announced that, with schools shut in its community of Framingham, the brewery would provide free pizza to students at the Beer Hall—no questions asked.
I look down at my pizza box. “All the <3” is scrawled on the top. I eat a buffalo tender in my driveway as soon as I get home, before arranging my bags of beer and food so I only have to make one rainy trip from the car.
