ST. MARYS, Ga. — Restaurants throughout Florida will be allowed to re-open their dining rooms Monday, but their counterparts in Georgia got a one-week head start as Gov. Brian Kemp allowed restaurants in the Peach State to re-open a week ago.
Some restaurants in St. Marys say re-opening has been good for getting their economic engines back rolling. But regarding the matter of actually opening dining rooms, a few restaurateurs seemed to harken a particular song title, "Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should."
“With a lot of the businesses in town not being open, we got progressively busier throughout the week, every day,” said Samantha Mazzola, who has worked at McGarvey’s Wee Pub for several years.
The pub opened its dining room and Mazzola said workers and patrons have adjusted to new norms, as various states and industries try to emerge safely from the coronavirus crisis.
“We took away a lot of the opportunities to sit close to each other, to maintain that six-foot guideline,” Mazzola said, “and everyone’s been pretty compliant with it.”
One of her patrons, Cain Randle, said he believes re-opening is a good idea, “as long as everyone stays six feet apart.”
Mazzola said that restaurant workers in Florida should “be prepared to carry lotion because you’re going to be washing and sanitizing a lot.”
Across town, Pirate’s Point Bar & Grill owner Rick Lawson had made the tough choice to re-open his outdoor patio but not his indoor dining room, which normally could seat about 30 people at a time.
“[Customers] are coming in without masks on, so I don’t feel comfortable with the seating room inside,” Lawson said, pointing out that with business trickled down to some take-out for nearly two months, he has plenty of incentive to get diners back inside. “I just don’t feel safe enough to have people inside because it’s small.”
In fact, he said he’s had his hands full trying to keep patrons properly distanced on the patio, having reduced the number of tables.
“I’ve had to turn some people away already because I couldn’t get any more out on the deck,” he said, predicting that restaurants south of the Georgia-Florida border will find themselves bustling to keep up. “It’s going to be a flood. I mean, they’re going to be very busy.”
Lawson’s advice to Floridian restaurants followed that prediction.
“Make sure you have enough staff," Lawson said. "It’s going to be hard to have staff on hand. A couple of my staff won’t even come out yet.”
But it was that last point – people still sheepish about their safety – that had yet another St. Marys restaurateur offering a different take.
“Nobody wants to dine in,” said Nagi Muheisen, owner of Countryside Fish & Chicken. “It seems like everybody still is scared.”
Muheisen told First Coast News he reached that conclusion after opening his dining room for one day and observing patrons’ comfort levels.
Although he’s been able to sustain a brisk drive-thru and take-out business, his dining room experience had him offering cautious advice about what his peers in Florida should do.
“I would start re-hiring people slowly,” he said. You can’t have all your employees and not doing any business.”
Even one patron who was lounging comfortably and chatting with a friend on the patio at Pirate’s Point expressed trepidation about a potential resurgence of COVID-19.
“Everybody comes out -- you come out and you still have it, it’s going to be spreading around again,” the man said.
Whether it’s too soon or not, emerging from coronavirus closures is as unprecedented as the pandemic itself. Given that, Mazzola offered a gentle piece of wisdom gained in just one week back behind the bar.
“We didn’t know what to expect, so just to be patient with businesses as a patron,” she said. “And for businesses, to prepare for the unexpected.”