The out-of-towner was talking about Xavier University. Once upon a time, the man from Connecticut had gone to school there. One day in early January, a cold day where temperatures barely rose above freezing, the man returned to visit the college with his daughters. They ate at Zip’s Café, a famous Cincinnati burger restaurant in Mount Lookout. One of the workers wore Xavier gear, and so that’s what they talked about. But this wasn’t Zip’s like the man remembered. The typically cramped and crowded restaurant seemed almost barren. There were QR codes linked to menus on the walls and signs about wearing a mask. The tables in the center of the dining room had been removed as part of COVID-19 precautions.