Eateries prepare to reopen amid social-distancing

Area eateries prepare to reopen amid social-distancing, sanitization guidelines

Nick Kustala initiating Sunday delivery of pantry items and meals just as other restaurants throughout Ohio reopen.

Nick Kustala is on a roll. He’s initiating Sunday delivery of pantry items and meals just as other restaurants throughout Ohio reopen after a twomonth shuttering to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Social distancing will remain a must as restaurant patios open May 15 and dining rooms reopen May 21.

Kustala, meanwhile, is delivering meals and restaurant provisions from his Austinburg Townshipbased The Farmer Butcher Chef Bistro to homes in Willoughby, Mentor, Painesville, Kirtland, Madison and Concord Township on Sundays.

“We’ve also begun adding soup boxes, juicing boxes and smoothie boxes to the orders,” he said.

Soup boxes include celery, carrots, escarole, leeks, lentils, noodles and beans, along with recipes to make several different soups.

He’s not opening his restaurants quite yet.

“We may open (The Estate on Coffee Creek) for dinners next month, but the Farmer Butcher Chef dinners and provisions for carryout and delivery are working well for now,” he said. “We sold 150 Mother’s Day meals last week.”

The Estate on Coffee Creek, with its five dining rooms, would serve two couples in each room.

The Farmer Butcher Chef Bistro provisions list, updated each week, often includes hard-to-find things such as yeast, bleach and plastic gloves, along with top-quality steaks, seafood

and chicken. Check it out at farmerbutcherchefprovisions.square.site. Orders placed before 2 p.m. each Thursday may be picked up on Saturday or be delivered the following Sunday.

The staff at Noosa Bistro in Mentor has been hard at work installing curtain-like partitions between booths and arranging table seating to better accommodate the prescribed social distancing.

“We’ll be doing disposable paper menus and posting our specials on the overhead TV screens,” said Susan Stanovsek, who coowns Noosa with her husband, Rob.

The state’s rules require plastic menus to be sterilized between customers. Noosa will continue with its carryout, which has been very successful with its online ordering. Patio dining will resume May 15, followed by the dining room opening on May 21.

Unlike some other states, Ohio is not limiting the capacity of restaurants, relying instead on spacing diners at a minimum of six feet apart. Groups dining together are limited to 10.

Servers and most kitchen staff will be required to wear masks, and diners will be encouraged to wear them when not physically eating. Diners soon will discover that condiments and self-service items such

as ketchup and lemon slices are missing from tables and that servers will serve them from what formerly had been self-serve salad bars and buffets.

Tabletops, chairs and menus will be sanitized between seatings, and hightouch areas such as door handles, light switches, phones, pens and touch screens will be sanitized at least every two hours.

Nouveau Bistro in Concord Township closed its doors during the lock-down instead of offering carryout but will open its patio on May 15 and its restaurant on May 21. They now encourage carryout orders and request reservations.

Many restaurants that have honed their carryout service to a science will continue offering meals to go. So will diners return? “Some are chomping at the bit to come in,” said Randal Johnson, chefowner of Molinari’s in Mentor. “Others are telling me they’re not going out for a while.”

He’s been operating for carryout with himself and two employees and gradually will bring back a few other staffers to open for dine-in on May 21.

“We’re lucky because we have plenty of space for 6-foot social distancing,” he said.

He strongly encourages reservations for dining in and requests the patience of those wishing to be seated at specific tables. Only six people will be able to sit at the bar.

“For the first few weeks, we will open the dining room Thursday through Saturday with our full menu. Takeout will continue Tuesday through Saturday for the foreseeable future. Once we get a feel for the demand, we will reopen the dining room Tuesday through Saturday.”

He and many others will watch carefully to see if COVID-19 numbers increase once the stay-at-home restrictions have eased.

SUBMITTED Matt Meineke checks out a chicken dinner delivered by The Farmer Butcher Chef Bistro, which his family will enjoy with one of his M Cellars wines.