Dallas restaurant workers have become enforcers of Dallas County’s newly-instituted mask ordinance that orders businesses to require customers and employees to wear masks or risk being fined $500 per violation.
Since the ordinance went into effect last Saturday, it’s been a rocky start for many restaurateurs who are trying to enforce the order, which makes an exception for customers who are consuming food or drinks.
Effectuating stringent safety measures at times feels antithetical to the hospitable nature of the restaurant industry for some restaurant operators, and juggling those measures with the guest experience is proving to be a challenge for many.
Cristina Pham, co-owner of Cris and John in Far North Dallas, said she and her staff had to get creative to find a way to enforce masks without losing any business.
Customers who do not have face coverings or refuse to put one on are given the option to buy a reusable cloth mask from the restaurant, order from their car and have their food brought to them, or sit at one of the outside tables set up at the entrance.
Even with these accommodations available, Pham said there are a few customers who refused to cooperate.
“It definitely has been a lot harder than we expected. You would think that everything we hear in the news and stuff that people would be a little more cautious,” she said. “We have had so many people coming in without masks and just not wanting to take any precautions.”
Pham said it’s not an easy position to be in ― enforcing the mask order to avoid getting fined while simultaneously trying to retain as much business as possible with capacity limits in place. There have been a few tense moments with angry customers, she said, but so far staff have been able to defuse situations when they arise.
“For us, since we’re a smaller, family-owned business, we can’t afford to say no to people,” she said. “We’re trying to do our best. It would obviously be a lot easier and it would give restaurant staff peace of mind if our customers were taking all of the precautions for us that we’re trying to take for them. We’re not trying to ruin your evening. We want you to enjoy your dinner and have a good time, but at the end of the day we should all be trying to be safe. We would just really appreciate it if people would take it a bit more seriously.”
Chef and owner Airric Heidelberg of Invasions in East Dallas said that over the weekend he denied entry to several people who refused to wear masks inside his restaurant. But he now has an employee stand at the door to offer disposable masks to anyone who doesn’t have one, and hasn’t had as many issues with upset customers.
“We had some guests get pretty pissed off,” he said. “They were upset because they couldn’t come in without a mask. To make everybody happy, to make the people who are worried and the people who don’t care happy, and to protect my staff, we give out masks. And then we educate everyone on what the rules are. A lot of people don’t know that if you enter into an establishment without a mask, that’s a $500 fine for us per person without a mask.”
Requiring masks is just as much about protecting his staff as it is about enforcing the county’s rule and avoiding fines, since one of his staff members has an autoimmune disease, Heidelberg said.
“Honestly, this puts restaurants in a tough situation,” he said. “Here we are having to enforce the law and at the end of the day, people have free will. It’s more younger people we’re kind of having a problem with who are coming in without masks on.
“It also puts on financial pressure,” he added. “We’re already a small restaurant running with limited staff, so it’s hard to really enforce this with limited employees. It just puts a lot of stress on restaurants. I’m trying to please everybody and get people to be safe at the same time.”
Dallas-based restaurateur Phil Romano said the county’s order and the way it is ― or rather isn’t ― being enforced pegs restaurants against their customers.
County officials “come in and they make a rule like this, but they’re not going to be there to enforce it. We’ve got to enforce it. We’ve got to get in fights with our customers. We’re on the front line. If they can’t go there and support the rule and make sure it’s done right, they shouldn’t pass it,” Romano said.
Restaurants in the Trinity Groves district provide masks to guests, and all employees wear face coverings, but as for customers wearing masks, “it’s their prerogative,” Romano said.
To prevent tension between restaurant employees and customers, Jon Alexis said he and his staff at TJ’s Seafood and Market and Malibu Poke are taking the approach of extending a little grace.
“We are going to be super extra with our staff and our team and the things we can control. We don’t feel the same way with our guests. We’re going to try to enforce the ordinances, but we’re not trying to be extra with our guests,” he said. “We have signs posted. We ask people to wear masks. We have complimentary masks for anyone who doesn’t have one. We feel that just by being gracious about it and not being aggressive about it, that we’ve gotten better compliance.”
Before the ordinance, there were a few instances in which customers harassed his employees for wearing masks, but for the most part guests have been compliant and respectful of the signs on the doors that ask for masks to be worn so the restaurants won’t face fines, Alexis said.
He supports the necessary measures to make sure restaurants are as sanitized and safe as possible, particularly since he is in a high-risk category himself. But Alexis said he doesn’t want his guests to “feel like they’re in the scary part of E.T. [the movie] where everyone is in hazmat suits,” which seems difficult to do these days.
“Restaurants are supposed to be a vacation from the real world, but it’s so hard today because, in terms of where germs are spread, restaurants are on the frontline,” he said. “We want to be this place where you can just come in and forget about the [expletive] of the world for an hour, but also we have to be as diligent as anybody, and it’s such a weird dichotomy.”
