Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

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BillyGr
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by BillyGr »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: May 27th, 2020, 8:10 am Outdoor dining is all well and good and may work where the climate is conducive to it more than a few months a year. Where I live, you're pretty much only talking about the spring and summer months and that's it. What happens to restaurants from say ealry-mid September to maybe April or May the following spring? They're in for a world of hurt.
I suspect the idea is to offer this on a temporary basis (which happens to work out well with the summer season) as a way to get more people to come to places, then hopefully by the time it starts to get too cool for it people would be more willing to return to a regular seating pattern (and rules would be getting less restrictive as well to allow more people in a given space).
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by cjd »

Looking around both today and Friday, looks like most restaurants here are back to business as usual. I would not want to eat in a restaurant right now, but the parking lots are back to being filled again. I hope the employees are getting their hours back now. Just hope nothing bad happens as far as virus.
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by klkla »

cjd wrote: June 13th, 2020, 4:38 pm Looking around both today and Friday, looks like most restaurants here are back to business as usual.
A lot of restaurants here in SoCal are open again but it's not back to business as usual.

I went out to dinner at a restaurant in Venice last night and they had fewer tables than before and plastic dividers between each of them. They also took the name and phone number of diners to help with contact tracing if necessary.

The night before I went to a restaurant here in L.A. and they took everyone's temperature before allowing them in. They also had fewer tables and they were spaced further apart but no plastic barriers.

Last weekend I went to a restaurant in West Hollywood and they weren't doing anything special other than spacing people out.

There doesn't seem to be any consistency as to how the restaurants here in SoCal are handling it.
Alpha8472
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by Alpha8472 »

The urban areas of the San Francisco Bay Area are doing outdoor dining. Streets are being closed and turned into outdoor dining areas with tables. Indoor dining is not allowed except in a few distant suburban counties which have very few coronavirus cases.
TW-Upstate NY
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

There's a Ruby Tuesday locally and what they have done is what I'd call (at best) making the best of a bad situation in regards to outdoor dining. They set up several tables on a paved area on the side of the building. Only problem with that is diners now have a spectacular view of a very busy (and noisy) state highway. Not exactly the ambiance you're looking for in a dining experience but at least they're trying.
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by klkla »

Alpha8472 wrote: June 14th, 2020, 2:23 am The urban areas of the San Francisco Bay Area are doing outdoor dining. Streets are being closed and turned into outdoor dining areas with tables. Indoor dining is not allowed except in a few distant suburban counties which have very few coronavirus cases.
That sounds like a pretty cool idea. Especially for the summer. There is a section of Montreal that does this every summer and it's nice.
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by Brian Lutz »

Our area is about 2 1/2 weeks into phase 2 reopening now, and a lot of places have reopened, but there are a few things I've noted:

- A lot of fast food chain restaurants (McDonald's and Wendy's seem most prominent) are still not allowing dine-in. The local McDonald's seems to have the lobby open for pickup (which they did even during the full lockdown) but isn't allowing any dine-in. An employee claimed that they didn't have clear guidance for reopening the dining room, so they were leaving it closed for now. Some McDonald's are still operating as drive-thru only. As far as I can tell all Wendy's locations here are still drive thru only. Taco Bells (many of which are operated by Pacific Bells) seem to have the dining rooms open,

One that strikes me as a bit odd is that 3 out of the 4 Cafe Rio locations in the Seattle metro area (Alderwood Mall, Issaquah and Kent) closed down at the start of the lockdown and have not yet reopened. One other location in Federal Way is open but is still takeout only.
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by BillyGr »

Brian Lutz wrote: June 22nd, 2020, 11:56 am Our area is about 2 1/2 weeks into phase 2 reopening now, and a lot of places have reopened, but there are a few things I've noted:

- A lot of fast food chain restaurants (McDonald's and Wendy's seem most prominent) are still not allowing dine-in. The local McDonald's seems to have the lobby open for pickup (which they did even during the full lockdown) but isn't allowing any dine-in. An employee claimed that they didn't have clear guidance for reopening the dining room, so they were leaving it closed for now. Some McDonald's are still operating as drive-thru only. As far as I can tell all Wendy's locations here are still drive thru only. Taco Bells (many of which are operated by Pacific Bells) seem to have the dining rooms open,

One that strikes me as a bit odd is that 3 out of the 4 Cafe Rio locations in the Seattle metro area (Alderwood Mall, Issaquah and Kent) closed down at the start of the lockdown and have not yet reopened. One other location in Federal Way is open but is still takeout only.
Hard to guess as the rules vary so much - here in NY, Phase II only allowed outdoor dining, Phase III allowed indoor (at 50%).
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by cjd »

I don't know about smaller independent restaurants here in my area. But in the last couple weeks people started eating inside Wendy's and I've been seeing a lot of cars at DQ parking lot. I'd guess most other fast food places are open for indoor dining, although I wouldn't, personally. Chains are open also, and I see people standing outside with no masks.
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Re: Coronavirus and Empty Restaurants

Post by Alpha8472 »

The McDonald's in the San Francisco Bay Area seem to attract tons of homeless people. They come in and take used cups and steal soda. Many of them used to use the restrooms to bathe. Many similar chain restaurants have closed their restrooms to prevent the homeless problems. The employees do not want to deal with the mess and the used needles. Indoor dining is only allowed in some counties in California.

I have driven around and now many restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area have turned their parking lots into outdoor dining areas. The crowds at dinner time are quite huge. Also late at night bars have set up outdoor dining areas and many bars in the downtown areas are packed outdoors. People want to go out to eat and drink again.
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