Businesses start cautious comeback
Owners limit capacity, stagger employee shifts
NEW YORK — This is what “normal” will look like for the foreseeable future.
In Connecticut, restaurants are reopening with outdoor-only dining and tables 6 feet apart. In Beverly Hills, California, the rich and glamorous are doing their shopping from the curb along Rodeo Drive. And preschools around the U.S. plan to turn social distancing into an arts-andcrafts project by teaching kids how to “create their own space” with things like yarn and masking tape.
As the U.S. and other countries loosen their coronavirus restrictions, it’s back to business, but not business as usual.
In fact, it is becoming all too clear that without a vaccine against the scourge, the disruptions could be long-lasting and the economy won’t be bouncing right back.
In Connecticut, restaurants that reopened Wednesday for outdoor dining are required to rearrange workstations so that employees don’t face one another and stagger shifts and break times to minimize contact among them. Markers must be installed to encourage customers to keep their distance from one another.
In Glastonbury, Connecticut, the Max Fish restaurant opened for lunch with 16 tables on outdoor patios.
Customers filled about half the tables in the early afternoon, and all of the tables were reserved for dinner, general manager Brian Costa said.
Friends and retirees Debbie Lawrence and Jill Perry, who often ate out together before the outbreak, enjoyed a meal at Max Fish.
“It was terrific. It’s just wonderful to be outside,” Lawrence said. “But I’m still a little leery of going to any stores.”
At the Crab Shell Restaurant on the waterfront in Stamford, co-owner James Clifford held up a roughly 6-foot-long stick he said he used to make sure chairs weren’t too close together.
“I just hope the outdoor people don’t get greedy and they don’t overstep their bounds,” he said. “Because if you can’t get it right outdoors, how can you get it indoors?”
In Fredericksburg, Virginia, one restaurant that recently reopened its patio has taken an extra step to reassure diners. The Colonial Tavern is taking staff members’ temperatures at the start of their shifts and posting the results for customers to see.
Some of new rules for dining out echo reopening guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are intended for child care centers, schools, day camps, mass transit systems, restaurants, bars and other businesses and organizations.
The CDC suggests mass transit systems close every other row of seats and limit how many riders can be on a bus or train.
With the virus far from vanquished, the reopenings could prove to be a stop-and-start process.
Ford temporarily halted production at two of its assembly plants Tuesday and Wednesday in Chicago and Dearborn, Michigan, after three autoworkers tested positive for the virus. Work was stopped to sanitize equipment and isolate those who were in contact with the infected employees.
Detroit’s Big Three automakers restarted their U.S. factories on Monday after a two-month shutdown.
Education, too, is facing big changes.
The University of Notre Dame in Indiana will bring students back to campus but redesigned its calendar to start the semester early in August and end before Thanksgiving.