How will SLO County restaurants look when they reopen? Your guide to ‘the new normal’
Remember what it was like to eat at your favorite San Luis Obispo County restaurant?
Groups of people sitting close together in tightly packed dining rooms. Un-masked wait staff flitting back and forth from the kitchen to the tables, bare hands carrying trays and passing out dishes.
If hand sanitizer was available, it was most likely in the bathroom or maybe a small bottle everyone could use at the hostess stand.
And don’t forget to reach into the candy dish for a peppermint on your way out.
Almost all of those things — so common to the restaurant experience — will be out the window once San Luis Obispo County establishments are allowed to fully reopen post-coronavirus.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently released new guidelines for social distancing and health regulations in restaurants once California counties enter the next phase of the state’s reopening plan.
The guidelines lay out a plan for restaurants that is drastically different than what they are used to — and many local owners are concerned whether they can successfully make the transition.
“I’ve got to be, on a Friday, Saturday night, at 90% capacity to make it,” Debbie Thomas, owner of Thomas Hill Organics in Paso Robles, told The Tribune. “It’s Fridays and Saturdays that pay the rent. Sunday brunch. Those are the times where it makes up for the rest of the week where it is slow.”
“It is what it is,” she added. “What I do know is if we can’t figure it out, we’re not going to be here.”
Now that San Luis Obispo County has announced it will soon begin a large-scale reopening of its retail and restaurant establishments, here’s a look at what you can expect when dining out.
What will change at SLO County restaurants?
So what exactly will be different?
Newsom’s office outlined a range of changes that would have to take place at restaurants for them to successfully social distance.
To start off, reservations are going to be much more important.
To give a restaurant time to properly disinfect areas, and to manage the number of people at a restaurant at any one time, you’ll likely be encouraged to make online or phone reservations before being allowed to dine there. You might even be offered the opportunity to order ahead of time through a website or mobile app.
When waiting to be seated, you won’t be gathered in a waiting area with other patrons. Instead, you’ll probably be asked to wait in your car — or at least distanced from the restaurant entrance. You’ll be alerted through your cell phone when your table is ready.
When entering the restaurant, a few things will likely stand out — including fewer tables to ensure a minimum of six feet between diners and partitions in front of host stands, bars, cash registers and other areas. Self-serve stations will be closed off, and markers will delineate waiting space for bathrooms or other areas customers might need to line up.
Doors and windows could be open to increase air circulation and signs will likely be posted all around the business, reminding people to social distance.
The chance you’ll be eating outside is also much higher. Restaurants are encouraged to make full use of their patios and offer outdoor seating as a way to ensure appropriate distance between diners.
Alcohol offerings will also likely be expanded to outside.
When you are led to your table, you might notice the table is bare except for the tablecloth. Condiment bottles and salt and pepper shakers should be replaced with single-serve containers, and no card stands, flyers or napkin holders will be allowed to be left on tables.
That tablecloth will also be fresh. Workers must replace all dirty linens, including tablecloths and napkins, after each meal.
Once you sit down, your waiter will provide you with pre-rolled utensil and napkin packages, and either a disposable menu or a menu that has been sanitized after every use. You could also have the option of viewing a digital menu on your phone.
The waiter, as well as all staff who come into contact with customers or food, will be wearing a mask and disposable gloves.
You won’t be required to wear a mask while you eat — although it could be required while walking into and out of the establishment.
Not much will change in the food offerings at restaurants, although you won’t be able to get any table-side guacamole or a cheesecake from a dessert cart. All food has to be prepared in the kitchen for the individual.
Once you’re done with your meal, you’ll have to package any leftovers up yourself. There will be no more sending food back to be boxed up.
You’ll be able — and encouraged —to quickly sanitize your hands at hand sanitizing stations set up near the exit as you leave.
As for those after-dinner mints? They’re a thing of the past.
Business owners worry about lower occupancy
The changes represent an incredible shift for most restaurants — and many are searching for creative ways around specific problems.
In San Luis Obispo County, restaurant owners have been following every news conference from the governor’s office, and talking with their local governments about the ways they will be able to reopen.
The biggest change that Gretchen LeMiere, owner of Taste in San Luis Obispo, said she was worried about was reducing occupancy in her restaurant.
“Obviously, restaurants we try to cram more people in,” she said. “I always tell people, ‘Butts in seats, that’s money.’ It’s not just for the owners, it’s staff too. More people at tables means more in tips.”
But now LeMiere has had to remove Taste’s large communal tables and replace those with smaller ones. In total, she said she thinks the restaurant’s occupancy has been reduced by a little under 50%.
She is pursuing approval from the city to expand some of her seating out into the parking lot of the Broad Street business, so that she can recoup some of the lost space inside the restaurant.
Due to the changes in occupancy, coupled with a switch to pickup orders and the loss of several big business weekends like Cal Poly’s Open House and school graduations, LeMiere said she expects Taste won’t be able to fully recover financially from all of the recent upheaval for at least a year.
“Obviously we are going to struggle along as long as we need to,” she said. “This is our business and this is what we rely upon to survive. This is the business we love.”
Shower curtains and parklets in Paso Robles
Other restaurant owners also have ideas for ways they can keep going.
In Paso Robles, Thomas has rearranged her restaurant to adhere to the guidelines including spacing out tables on the patio and installing hand sanitizing stations at the entrance.
She’s also bought clear plastic shower curtains to hang inside the dining room as a way to separate tables and increase the number she’s allowed to keep in the room.
“I saw some other restaurant do it, so I was like, ‘It’s kind of brilliant,’ ” she said. “But I don’t know for sure yet if it will work. We will see.”
Thomas said she is still concerned about how the changes will impact her bottom line.
“If the industry norm is 35% less tables, that’s going to disrupt everything,” she said. “If we could open up 100%, it would be one thing, but you know we won’t be able to do that.”
In response, she’s been working closely with the city of Paso Robles to try to figure out other creative ways to increase seating at local restaurants.
That includes pursuing parklets — something the city of Pismo Beach pioneered for the county several years ago — and community dining nights at a local park where all the local restaurants can provide food.
She also said they will be talking about potentially shutting down a road near restaurants on a Saturday night so that those businesses could set up tables in the street and increase the number of people they serve.
“I know that the city wants to help,” she said. “ If they don’t help, honestly, there is no way we can make it.”
She added: “It’s going to be the new normal.”
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