Pandemic dining
How to play it safe when eating out at restaurants.
Going out to a restaurant means more than eating a meal; it means being around other people for an hour or two or maybe even longer.
That communal experience always was part of the appeal of going out to dinner. Now, during the coronavirus pandemic, it’s rightly giving some diners pause.
The more you interact with others, and the longer you interact, the greater the risk you might catch or spread the new coronavirus, notes the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Risk depends on the situation. Sometimes it’s greater, sometimes lesser, but the risk of catching COVID-19 doesn’t go away entirely. The coronavirus is still present, even though numbers of newly infected people in Wisconsin appeared to be stabilizing or falling in early June.
“It’s not going to go anywhere,” Troy Skwor said of the virus. Skwor is an assistant professor in the biomedical sciences department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Remember that the main way the disease is transmitted is through respiratory droplets, emitted when people are talking, coughing, sneezing, laughing or singing.
The virus also can be picked up from surfaces, although that’s not considered the main way it’s spread. Washing hands frequently with good old soap and hot water will take care of the virus, and using hand sanitizer likewise will help. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth in any case.
You can check a restaurant’s social media posts or call them to find out what safety precautions they’re taking before you go, and see how comfortable they make you feel.
If you’re weighing the chances of getting sick against the twin lures of a good meal and supporting favorite restaurants, you can consider these ways to decrease your odds of catching the virus or spreading it to others:
Assess your own risk and health
First, if you have any symptoms that might be COVID-19 — including headache, fever, chills, dry cough, shortness of breath, body aches or fatigue — or if you were or might have been exposed to the disease within the previous two weeks, for the love of all that’s sanitary, stay home.
“If you’re sick, don’t go out,” said Claire Evers, the Milwaukee deputy commissioner of environmental health.
If you’re part of the population most vulnerable to this coronavirus, you’re safer sticking with takeout and curbside pickup, which most restaurants are continuing, or drive-through or delivery. That includes people 65 and older, and people with conditions such as heart or lung diseases or diabetes, or who have compromised immune systems.
Take it outside
“If you’re going to go to a restaurant, your best bet, your safest bet, would be to sit outside,” said Skwor.
The first phase of reopening in some cities, such as Minneapolis and Chicago, allowed only patio seating, reserving indoor seating for the next phase. It’s less risky than dining indoors.
Some Milwaukee-area spots chose to reopen with patio seating only, such as Barnacle Bud’s on South Hilbert Street and Stubby’s Gastrogrub on North Humboldt Avenue. And some restaurants, including Brandywine in Cedarburg, are taking reservations for their patios, something new.
The next best option would be a restaurant with those trendy overhead doors thrown wide open to allow in plenty of fresh air, Skwor indicated.
It’s less risky outdoors and near open windows because fresh air and breezes dilute the virus. Stale air in confined spaces is more problematic. Consider the now-famous study from Guangzhou, China, in which air-conditioning and an exhaust fan were implicated in the spread of COVID-19. A person who didn’t show symptoms until after leaving the restaurant infected nine other people, five of whom were at two neighboring tables.
If you’re dining inside, make sure tables are at least 6 feet apart, the distance recommended by the CDC and local health departments.
Make a reservation
Reservations not only control the flow of arriving and departing patrons and prevent crowds forming in waiting areas and at the host stand, they allow staff to thoroughly clean tables after a group has left.
Another important benefit: Reservations provide the restaurant with contact information if you must be notified in case of an outbreak. (Our neighbor Minnesota required reservations when its restaurants were allowed to reopen in June for just that reason.)
Meraki in Walker’s Point, for instance, requires reservations so it will have contact information if needed. The Hospitality Democracy restaurant group, which operates Smoke Shack, Onesto and Blue Bat Kitchen in the Third Ward and AJ Bombers downtown, prefers but doesn’t require reservations, but it does require that one person in the party leave contact information.
Take note whether the reservation comes with a time limit. La Merenda in Walker’s Point, for example, caps reservations at two hours. Parties without reservations will be asked to wait outdoors or in their cars, and La Merenda will call them when their tables are ready.
Watch your time
Remember that length of time of exposure is a risk factor. Even if the restaurant doesn’t limit your time at the table when you make the reservation, you’ll want to avoid camping there.
Check menus ahead of time
If they’re available online, you can narrow your choices before you go so you’re ready to order. It helps limit your time and exposure in the restaurant (and the servers’, too, so they won’t have to come to the table a second time to take your order).
See if the staff wears masks
We’ve been told time and again to wear face coverings to help protect other people. Servers, bartenders and hosts who are wearing masks are helping protect diners.
Skwor, of UWM, noted that people are at highest risk when they’re facing each other. Respiratory droplets from an unmasked server could fall as they’re standing beside a table; diners, talking “up” to a server, don’t pose quite as much of a risk.
Some businesses require customers to wear masks on entering, as at La Merenda, which will provide a mask if the patron doesn’t have one. The Hospitality Democracy restaurants also ask customers to wear masks any time they’re not seated — entering or leaving the restaurant, or walking through the dining room to the restroom.
Keep it clean
Make sure your hands are clean just before you eat. “You just touched the table; you just touched the chair,” noted Evers, of the City of Milwaukee Health Department. On the way in, you likely touched a doorknob. Conscientious restaurants are cleaning frequently touched surfaces, but it’s doubtful they’d be able to clean the door between each patron. (Skwor notes that propping the door open in summer would leave one fewer source of transmission.)
Many restaurants have hand sanitizer available at the door and some even have it on each table, but bring your own, just in case. You especially want clean hands if you’ll be eating anything with your fingers — bread and butter, chicken wings, a sandwich or ribs, for instance.
Not sharing is caring
After years of sharing plates at the table, it’s time to stop, or at least pause. Avoid sharing food and drink, Evers recommended, and handling the same plate or utensil, especially if you’re dining with people you haven’t been in quarantine with.
Keep parties small
But experts say that if you want to minimize risk, dine only with the people you’ve been in quarantine with, be it family or roommates. The standard is no more than six to a table.
Keep your distance
Observe the CDC recommendation to stay at least 6 feet away from other people, including lines for the restroom. You might prefer to wait. Simply walking past someone, though, isn’t considered high risk.
Go cashless and contactless
Contactless payment reduces risk, and generally, credit cards are favored over cash.
At some restaurants, even the menu and ordering can be contactless.
Crossroads Collective food hall, on North Farwell Avenue, is taking part in a pilot ordering program that lets customers view menus and order from tables without standing in line. Patrons can order from multiple vendors at once as well as drinks from the bar after scanning a QR code at the table with their smart phones. The QR code also identifies to which table the order belongs, so a masked server can bring the food directly to the table. And the system takes payment, so customers don’t have to use the otherwise frequently touched payment screens at the counters.
Crossroads also recently installed touchless faucets in the restrooms, eliminating another high-contact surface.
If the restaurant doesn’t have the technology for contactless payment, bring your own pen to sign the credit card slip.
Play by the rules
That means not pushing tables together, keeping your 6 feet of distance, wearing a mask when a business requests it and honoring other restaurant procedures meant to keep you and their workers safe. And it helps to be particularly kind during these strange days; they’re challenging for everyone.
Contact dining critic Carol Deptolla at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or (414) 2242841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_diner.