The drive to Giovanni Di Palma’s Little Italy dining “compound” in Home Park took one-third the time it normally would at 6 p.m. on a Thursday. The Connector was traffic-free and the sidewalks along 14th Street empty, except for the lone college-aged student wearing a facemask – stark signs of the reality that we are all navigating right now.

My spirits lifted when I parked the car on Hemphill Avenue and walked around the building to Di Palma’s newest concept, Gio’s Sicilian. The peppy voices of the Shirelles piped through the speakers on the patio: Mama said there'll be days like this / There'll be days like this mama said.