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For the first time since November, restaurants, bars and breweries in the Portland metro area will be allowed to reopen their indoor dining rooms to limited capacity at the end of the week, Governor Kate Brown announced Tuesday.
The move comes as the drop in COVID-19 cases has led Brown to move 10 counties in Oregon – including Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington – from the “extreme” risk category to the “high” risk category, allowing the partial reopening of certain businesses, in particular restaurants, gymnasiums and the cinema. theaters.
For restaurants, the change means that from Friday, dining rooms closed since November can now be filled to 25% of capacity or 50 people, whichever is less, with parties limited to six people from two. households to the maximum. Restaurants will still have to close at 11 p.m.
Oregon’s four risk categories are “extreme”, “high”, “moderate” and “low”. In the most recent two-week period followed by the state, Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties each had less than 200 cases per 100,000 population and were testing positivity rates below 10%, qualifying them to drop out of the process. most restrictive category.
In a statement, Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association president Jason Brandt called the announcement “a step in the right direction.”
The lobby group described ‘opening and closing restaurants’ as the # 1 challenge facing the industry, with restaurants forced to lay off or rehire workers and forecast how much food they could. need depending on whether the restoration inside is open or not. Brandt recommended eliminating the “extreme” risk category altogether to give restaurants more flexibility in the future.
The Independent Restaurant Association of Oregon issued a more cautious note, calling the move a “double edged sword” for restaurants that may find themselves temporarily closed to deal with COVID-19 outbreaks at work, all without a safety net.
“We have heard repeatedly that scientists and doctors are concerned about the spread of the virus in enclosed spaces where people eat and drink – an activity that cannot be done with a mask,” said Katy Connors, president of the group’s board of directors. “Restaurant owners shouldn’t have to choose between their financial health and their physical health. They must now have access to the vaccine. “
Dean Griffith, president of the Old Spaghetti Factory, said the Portland-based chain plans to reopen its metro-area locations on Friday, although the “high-risk” restrictions remain onerous.
“Our Portland restaurant can seat 450 people, so having 50 customers in a restaurant this size is pretty empty,” Griffith said. “We’re not even going to be able to fill all the tables by the river. I don’t know how having a few more people who are socially distant could create more problems. “
Griffith was frustrated by the state’s lack of transparency regarding the decision to close restaurants.
“They say the statistical analysis indicates restaurants could be part of the problem,” Griffith said. “But we’ve been open for three months this summer and haven’t seen any increase in the workload. Then they shut us down and it took months for the number of cases to go down, and the incubation period is so much shorter than that.
Gabriel Rucker, the award-winning chef of Le Pigeon and Canard restaurants in Portland, said he was in no rush to reopen, although he is ready to reconsider “in a month or so” if the number of cases continues to drop .
“We don’t even know about any new variants coming up,” Rucker said. “Why are we doing this now, just because we’ve hit an arbitrary number? Doesn’t it make sense to really master it rather than sort of master it?
Le Pigeon was already planning to open a different kind of in-person dining concept on Friday – offering three-course meals in private rooms at Jupiter Next, a nearby hotel. The new concept has allowed Rucker and his business partner Andy Fortgang to double the workforce at Le Pigeon, which has been focusing on take-out food since November.
“I feel blessed that people have come back,” Rucker said. “But I just took the litmus test of making the calls, and there are people who don’t feel comfortable with that. And many of our employees have left the restaurant business. It’s been a year! So for me, I’m going to wait, make sure it’s gonna really stick, and see we’re going to do it right, because it costs a lot of money to do it right.
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