Clearing the air
Local eateries experiment with filtration options to keep customers safe, comfortable
Local eateries are experimenting with filtration options to keep customers safe, comfortable this winter as the pandemic continues./
Nothing is off the table for restaurant owners trying to stay open while keeping customers safe this winter. The latest splurge some restaurants are making is on a new disinfection filtration system that they can purchase in addition to their HVAC system.
Cold Stone Creamery and Bountiful Bread in Stuyvesant Plaza installed their units last week. The Log Jam in Lake George installed four in each of their dining rooms. Butcher Block Steak and Seafood in Plattsburgh installed units in their bar, sunroom, dining room and board room.
White Management, which owns these restaurants along with many Dunkin Donuts, KFCS and Taco Bells in the area, was looking for a way to help their restaurants survive this winter. They decided a
deluxe air purification unit was best because it filters smaller air particles than a HEPA filter can.
The coronavirus particles are 0.1 micron, and these units can capture and kill particles down to 0.007 microns, according to Healthway, the unit’s manufacturer.
“What this (system) does is instead of filtering out the air like MERV 13, it is actually killing the bacteria and the viruses,” said Nick Rauscher from Eastern Heating and Cooling. “The end game is still the same, to reduce how much virus is in the air people are breathing.”
Despite recommending the system, Rauscher noted that one or more of these filters does not guarantee that COVID -19 can’t be spread in a restaurant’s space.
“If you put one of these in and a customer comes in with COVID, we really don’t know what that means. No one does. Not even the doctors know that,” Rauscher said. “But it just makes sense to take all precautions you can take.”
The units cost about $1,000 apiece and look like a portable air conditioning unit. The visibility of the unit to the customer is one way of communicating that the space is safe, said Candice White, the vice president of communications at White Management.
“It is really hard, and we do really have to watch what we spend this time of year. But you have to go with what is right,” said Tony Greco, general manager of the Log Jam, which spent a little over $4,000 on its units. “We felt we had to do something to make our customers feel safer… The price really came second.”
Other measures restaurants are taking include only allowing four people to dine at a table, spacing tables more than six feet apart and having employees deliver takeout orders to various neighborhoods. Some restaurants are considering closing for a couple of days during the week to keep expenses low.
Iron Gate Café in Albany had turned off its online ordering this summer when the restaurant was busy with outdoor dining. Staff have turned it back on and are offering delivery to certain neighborhoods each weekend in order to keep the restaurant less crowded and engage customers who might have come to the café from Saratoga, Troy or downstate.
Sunhee’s Farm and Kitchen in Troy is committed to offering outdoor dining only this winter. Guests are seated on the patio under a tent. Heaters and menu items like their “hot pot,” which creates heat and steam at the table, keep customers warm.
“As soon as it got really cold, we did see a significant drop, but over a little bit of time customers came back,” said Jinah Kim, the owner of Sunhee’s Farm and Kitchen. “Customers have a higher tolerance and understanding for outdoor dining now.”