Rampant confusion over dining out in South Florida

South Florida fans of the BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse gastropub chain received an unusual email blast late on Tuesday morning, emblazoned in all capital letters: “We’re happy to announce we’re now open for dine in!”

Here’s the problem: Not in South Florida, they aren’t. No restaurant is.

On Monday, restaurants around the state — but not Broward, Palm Beach or Miami-Dade counties — were allowed to reopen at 25% capacity under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan. In Orlando, for example, eaters in the grips of cabin fever cautiously returned to dining rooms — and some eateries reported being fully booked. Meanwhile,

many South Floridians still under shutdown orders migrated north to a re-opened Martin County, north of Palm Beach County, although not many folks wore masks.

Back home, however, there’s been rampant confusion over many COVID-19 rules and restrictions, including when South Florida can reopen dining rooms (not clear) and how much occupancy South Florida restaurants will have (25 percent? 50 percent?). It’s no wonder customers, stressed to their limits with quarantine fatigue, would pine for a return to the restaurant booth.

As it turns out, an overzealous BJ’s Restaurant corporate worker might’ve pushed the “send” button, says Alexander Torrens, a general manager at BJ’s Restaurant in Coral Springs. He says their dining room isn’t open, but so far, a dozen confused callers have phoned the restaurant on Tuesday mentioning the blast email.

“Yeah, I’ve had to tell them, ‘It was a mistake,’ because corporate sent an email to [subscribers in] the whole state of Florida but South Florida is exempt from opening dining rooms,” Torrens says.

Last week DeSantis said South Florida, home to most of the state’s coronavirus cases and deaths, will stay under tighter restrictions for the foreseeable future. But outside Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade countries, DeSantis allowed restaurants to re-open at 25 percent capacity with social distancing guidelines. That includes BJ’s other Florida outposts.

At BJ’s Restaurant in West Palm Beach, another manager who wouldn’t provide his name confirmed that he’s turned away several callers asking about the dining room.

“We’re having to retract that statement on an ongoing basis today,” the manager says.

As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse hadn’t addressed the email mix-up on its social-media channels. In a follow-up email to subscribers, BJ’s Restaurant copped to the mistake, writing, “We apologize for the inconvenience. We look forward to opening our restaurants for dine in and seeing you soon.”

BJ’s Restaurant, which includes 19 Florida locations (and 202 in the U.S.), has other outposts in Pembroke Pines and Miami. The South Florida locations remain open for takeout and delivery only.