Mask up indoors — vaccinated or not
One owner may lay off workers if unvaccinated
Many restaurants were rushing Friday to respond to a new public health recommendation in seven Bay Area counties that advises vaccinated people to again wear masks indoors — with one cautious owner deciding to lay off any unvaccinated employees and others quickly announcing changes in their mask requirements for customers.
Zareen Khan of Zareen’s in Palo Alto, Redwood City and Mountain View, said she sent a notice about letting go of unvaccinated employees to her managers on Friday after reading about Los Angeles County’s new mask mandate. Her staff never stopped wearing masks at work, but she doesn’t want to take the risk as concerns increase about the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus.
Health officials said that fully vaccinated people are protected from getting seriously ill, and the new guidance is an effort to prevent the
spread of the contagious delta variant among unvaccinated people. A universal recommendation, officials said, would make it easier to verify that the unvaccinated are masking up. The guidance was issued in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma counties; Napa and Solano counties did not join the recommendation.
Though restaurant staffers were given priority for vaccinations and infections were dramatically reduced, the coronavirus is still infecting people in the hospitality industry. Recently, restaurants such as Khom Loi in Sebastopol, Trinks Cafe in Gualala (Mendocino County) and the reopened Tosca Cafe in San Francisco have had to temporarily shut down due to a positive coronavirus case on their staffs.
“If anyone doesn’t want to get vaccinated, we will let them go. It’s terrible but we need people to understand this is serious,” said Khan, who noted that most of her employees are vaccinated. “It’s better to be cautious than to be sorry.”
Others reinstated mask mandates for their staffs. At Wursthall in downtown San Mateo on Friday afternoon, General Manager Xian Choy was handing out masks to employees in response to the new guidance. Before Friday, any employee who showed proof of vaccination did not have to wear a face covering at work, Choy said. El Rio, the 42yearold queer bar in San Francisco’s Mission District, had let employees decide on their maskwearing, but as of Friday, staffers will be required to wear them, according to General Manager Lynne Angel.
It’s unclear is what restaurants will ask of diners. Bay Area health officials said in their announcement that “businesses are urged to adopt universal masking requirements for customers entering indoor areas of their businesses to provide better protection to their employees and customers.”
As of Friday, Zareen’s will require customers to wear masks indoors again. Daly City Korean restaurant Bart Grocery alerted customers on Instagram that it would be reinstating a mask requirement: “With delta variant numbers continuing to rise and for the safety of our staff, we kindly require masks to be worn while in our store.”
But the new guidance is likely to spark confusion — and perhaps pushback — among customers. Choy of Wursthall said the restaurant won’t force customers to put masks on inside yet, wanting to avoid confrontations. “There’s so much friction if we’re the first restaurant to be like, ‘You gotta wear your mask inside,’ ” Choy said.
It simply doesn’t seem realistic to get diners to cover their faces again, said Bob Cina, executive chef of District in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland.
“I just don’t feel like we’re in a position to make requirements beyond what is mandated,” he said. “People can make their own decisions.”
Alexis Solomou of Russian Hill Italian spot Seven Hills said part of him wishes San Francisco would mandate maskwearing again so he’s not in the challenging position of requesting diners to wear masks when other restaurants might not. At the same time, he said another mask mandate would likely freak people out.
“I know if they do enforce masks, we’ll get a bunch of cancellations,” he said. Solomou said he is considering asking diners to wear masks when not at their table and having employees mask up again.
Some Bay Area restaurants won’t have to change much because of this guidance. After the bulk of restrictions were lifted in June, some safetyminded restaurants set their own masking rules to be more cautious in case of this exact scenario: new public health guidance.
The owners of Bartavelle Cafe in Berkeley, which has remained takeoutonly, are relieved they won’t need to make any major changes to their operations. Owner Sam Sobolewski said his cafe only recently stopped enforcing masks for customers lining up outside. At Cassava in San Francisco, the fully vaccinated staff has continued to wear masks at work, coowner Yuka Ioroi said.
Still, even these restaurateurs are prepared to make more changes if necessary. “We probably will have another meeting about it as a staff and see how everything is feeling,” Sobolewski said.
Hanging over all of this is fear of another shutdown. In a statement, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association said they were not surprised by the new guidance and that it underscores why outdoor dining is an ongoing, crucial lifeline for restaurants. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week voted to allow small businesses to continue to use public sidewalks and parking spots for parklets and dining spaces. But other Bay Area cities have yet to decide whether street closures and outdoor parklets will become permanent or longerterm fixtures.
And while Friday’s news won’t change Ioroi’s plans to reopen indoor dining at her Outer Richmond restaurant next month, she emphasized the importance to take the mask recommendation seriously to prevent more closures.
“I don’t think a lot of restaurants can handle another shutdown,” she said. “It might mitigate the risk of that.”