EXPANDED CAPACITY
Business expected to improve with relaxed COVID-19 restrictions
Restaurants and bars being allowed to operate at half their indoor capacity starting Friday is expected to bring more foot traffic to other retailers, shops and cafes in downtown Royal Oak.
“I think it’s going to allow more people to go out and it’s going to incentivize businesses to reopen when it didn’t make financial sense to stay open at 25 percent capacity,” said Sean Kammer, the city’s Downtown Development Authority manager.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this week relaxed COVID-19 restrictions on bars, restaurants, gatherings, theaters, bowling alleys and other venues.
Kammer expects pent-up demand for seats at restaurants and other venues to bring more people into town.
“I think we’ll end up with places seeing all their seats” filled up, he said.
Even before the decreased restrictions were announced, Kammer said he noticed that all the seats were filled on a recent Friday night when he was looking for a place to dine.
“I could not find an open table,” he said.
The past year of the pandemic has been hard on restaurants and bars. Many worked to survive with outdoor dining and takeouts when indoor din
ing was prohibited.
Others took the down time to renovate or reconfigure their drinking and dining establishments.
“Quantitatively, it has been difficult for all our business operators,” Kammer said.
Still, he noted there have been openings or re-openings of at least nine new businesses in the downtown area over the past
few months.
Last month, Bamboo, a company that rents spaces to creative startups, tech firms and established businesses opened its second location in downtown Royal Oak at Third and Main streets.
The shuttered Town Tavern in January was reopened under new ownership as Side Bar, a new bar and grill.
Le Don Collection, a menswear shop opened on Washington Avenue, and is among new retailers in town.
The vegan food truck and restaurant Nosh Pit opened a location near the Imagine Theatre on Main Street recently, taking over a space left vacant by Detroit Taco.
At Fourth and Main streets, Comerica Bank opened its first branch in Royal Oak last month in a long-vacant building there that used to house the Pieology pizzeria.
On the east side of Main Street at Third the former Qdoba restaurant, which closed over a year ago, became the new home for
the Metals in Time jewelry store.
In December, Diamond’s Steakhouse and Seafood owner Adam Merkel announced he was converting the location into two different-themed restaurants.
The move is somewhat similar to what John Prepolec, owner of the former Mr. B’s on Main Street, did last year when he renamed his place Alchemy and began bringing in new separate dining concepts.
There are still plenty of businesses interested in coming to Royal Oak,
Kammer said,
Though the DDA won’t know the full economic impact of the pandemic on the downtown until a later date, Kammer said he is optimistic about the downtown’s continued viability.
“The news from the federal level that the COVID-19 vaccines are going to be delivered early, in May instead of July, is going to drive a (greater comfort level) for people to be out visiting restaurants and shops in the downtown,” he said.