Whole new world for restaurants and pubs
Establishments scramble to reopen under entire different set of rules in pandemic world
Restaurants and pubs have begun preparing to cautiously reopen for in-house and patio dining and drinks, doing their best to follow provincial guidelines that aren’t always specific or clear.
“It’s the first time for everybody, it’s like opening a new business,” said Ian Tostenson, president and CEO of the B.C. Restaurant and Food Services Association.
He sees the business model shifting to more takeout and delivery, and in-house capacity inching up gradually over the long term.
“What’s really important is opening up more patio space,” he said. “And we’re getting great co-operation from communities everywhere in B.C.”
At Raglan’s Bistro in North Vancouver’s Shipyards District, owner Scott McArthur and staff were busy staining and shellacking the patio and setting up things inside for a small soft opening Wednesday.
“At this point, it’s therapeutic,” McArthur, one of the pioneering pub owners in Lower Lonsdale, said after putting down his paint brush. “I had a sense in mid-March (when restaurants were closed to in-house dining) like the wind coming out of my sails. It was like staring at 20 years wasted.”
Like all the pub owners contacted, McArthur was having trouble finding PPE and Plexiglas. And all of them agreed staff will have to be vigilant in keeping customers from becoming too friendly in what, after all, is a social space where alcohol is consumed.
“Hugging someone at another table, that’s going to be out of the question,” he said.
Over at the Five Point Restaurant and Pub on Main Street, owner Matt Thompson said he’s lost somewhere between $1.2 million and $1.5 million in sales at his four establishments.
“And I’ve taken on debt, there’s all sorts of bills I owe,” he said.
His manager Lindsay Drury’s
full-time job for the last month has basically been studying the WorkSafeBC and Coastal Health bulletins and guidelines, and looking for ideas on how to keep customers and staff safe.
All of Thompson establishments — the punk-rockthemed Cannibal Cafe burger joint and Park Drive Restaurant on Commercial, and Alphabet City a kilometre south of Five Point on Main Street — will have Plexiglas barriers in place, the doors and windows open so air flows, and arrows on the floor.
“Traffic will be kept to oneway, and we’re hoping to extend the patio,” Drury said before being called away by a phone call from Yelp. Reservations will be key. “If I know 35 customers are coming in at five o’clock, that’s pretty helpful,” Thompson said.
The interesting thing will be managing people.
“What do you do, say, if someone says ‘There’s my buddy Gord, I haven’t seen him in five years!’ and invites him to a table that already has (the maximum allowable) six people sitting at it?” Thompson asked.
Servers already need to have a SIR (serving-it-right) certificate to be able to work in licensed premises and are taught “smart-serving.”
“For overly friendly people we’ll need to dial back even more,” Drury said before she left. “I think we’ll all figure it out.”