Updated at 4:50 p.m.: Revised to include reaction from several business owners.
Beginning Friday, Texas restaurants can allow more customers to dine inside as part of the second phase of the state’s reopening plan, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday.
Restaurants, which had been ordered to stop dine-in service to slow the spread of COVID-19, may expand capacity to 50% on Friday. Bars, wine tasting rooms, craft breweries and other similar businesses also may reopen Friday at 25% capacity, the governor said.
Those capacity limits don’t apply to outdoor spaces where people can maintain social distance, the governor said. And the Friday reopening and expansion date excludes four counties where health authorities have seen a spike in coronavirus cases: El Paso, Randall, Potter and Deaf Smith. For those counties, the date will be pushed back a week, Abbott said.
In phase one of the governor’s reopening plan, Abbott gave restaurants the green light to reopen at 25% capacity beginning May 1.
And as before, businesses are making cautious choices.
Brad Mall, of Oak Highlands Brewery in far northeast Dallas, said the brewery will be reopening to allow guests inside. He was happy to hear the governor’s announcement — he just wished it would’ve come sooner.
Revenue has been down 73% since the officials ordered businesses closed amid the pandemic, Mall said. The brewery has been able to allow people to pick up beer to go, but being able to allow customers to sit down and have a drink inside “is really what we were banking on," Mall said.
Oak Highlands Brewery is located in a warehouse — “it’s not like we’re a cramped, small bar," Mall said — so social distancing won’t be a problem.
“We were happy that [the governor] did this,” Mall said. “We wish he would’ve done it with everybody else [in phase one], but we’ll take it.”
Parigi in Oak Lawn is taking its reopening in phases, owner Janice Provost said, but working at its own pace.
Phase One was Parigi’s “picnic on the patio,” where customers could take their to-go orders out to the patio to eat. That began May 11, Provost said.
On May 12, Provost waited on some customers dining on the patio, which she said gave her insight into all the details involved in safely serving a guest during the pandemic — from propping open doors to following sanitation protocols, she said.
“We are going through more gloves than you can even imagine,” she said.
Asked about how the governor’s latest announcement would impact her business, Provost said Parigi will carefully keep moving toward having people dine inside the restaurant.
“One hundred percent, we’re moving forward,” she said. “We’re just trying to do it with grace and with respect to both my employees and to my guests. That’s what really ultimately matters.”
Jimmy Contreras, owner of Taco y Vino in the Bishop Arts District, said the restaurant’s dining room will stay closed for the foreseeable future. The restaurant is still offering takeout, and people can take their food out to eat on the patio.
“I think right now, we just need to kind of err on the side of caution,” Contreras said.
He said he’d hate to put his staff in harm’s way by opening up the dining room.
“Or even worse, put my guests in some kind of danger,” he said.
Business hasn’t been terrible, he said, but since restaurants were allowed to open at 25% capacity beginning May 1, he’s seen a definite dip in sales — it hasn’t been sustainable, he said.
He wants to be sure he has a better grip on what’s going on with the coronavirus before he allows customers back inside, but he knows other restaurants don’t have a choice but to open up and try to generate any revenue they can.
“Some people had to open up,” he said. “They just have to because they need the income. I don’t judge anyone one way or the other.”
If it came down to losing his restaurant or opening his dining room, “I’m totally going to open up the dining room,” Contreras said.
