Updated at 6:45 p.m.: Revised to reflect new comments by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Gov. Greg Abbott ordered all bars in Texas to shut their doors at noon Friday and for restaurants to cut back to 50% of capacity to curb the spread of the new coronavirus as cases spike across the state.
For some bar owners in North Texas, it felt like déjà vu, as this is the second time in less than four months that watering holes have been forced to lock up.
“I’m kind of laughing because I’m trying not to be hysterically upset. It’s just unbelievable,” said Kim Finch, owner of the Dallas bars Double Wide and Single Wide. She’s also in the middle of building a new bar called Thunderbird Station.
Texas bars, which were ordered closed on March 16, were allowed to reopen on May 22 at 25% of capacity. Then they were allowed to expand to 50% of capacity on June 3.
The new temporary closure of all bars in Texas was a sweeping move after state officials reported that 11.76% of tests for the virus had come back positive in a seven-day period, up significantly from May’s numbers of under 5%. Case numbers in Dallas County are also climbing, with a new one-day record of 496 on Thursday.
Double Wide and Single Wide reopened only a week ago. Finch had chosen to keep the bars closed longer than required, saying she didn’t want to hurry.
“We just wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing,” she said. “And then money ran out; we kind of had to open.”
She even hired a construction crew to put a roll-up garage door on her bar to allow covered seating in what used to be a music venue at the Double Wide. She also purchased two fogger machines to sanitize the bars — “and we don’t need those right now,” she said.
“Every day, we make a plan. And every day, it changes,” Finch said.
Many bar owners had invested in remodeled spaces and sanitation measures and loaded up on fresh juices and produce after being closed for two months. The governor’s decision to close them again was a crushing blow, some said.
”It’s a death sentence for us,” said Shad Kvetko, co-owner of Las Almas Rotas, the mezcaleria that opened in 2017 near Fair Park.
The original shutdown, he said, had cut 80% of the bar’s business, a situation Las Almas Rotas tried to alleviate by offering a drive-through food menu to keep the place afloat and some of the staff employed.
But then they faced more competition when restaurants reopened.
“We’ve just been bleeding money in order to do to the right thing and protect our staff and the public,” Kvetko said. “If they were closing everything, including restaurants, it wouldn’t be so bad. We’ll probably be forced to close. I just don’t see us coming back from that.”
Tom Garrison, who has operated the Uptown Dallas dive bar Stoneleigh P since 1973, is a bit more optimistic. He said he feels fortunate that his landlord understands the challenges bars and restaurants are facing. He said the bar “was just fine” when customers were allowed in at reduced capacity. He seemed concerned about the closure on Friday, but he was already moving the tables and packing up the liquor an hour before the noon shutdown time.
“We put a barrier on the door. And we say, ‘We’ll be back,‘” he said.
‘A Band-Aid on a bullet hole'
The decision also affects tasting rooms at distilleries, such as Blackland Distillery in Fort Worth, where owner Markus Kypreos said that while he felt closing the bars was the right decision, the measure didn’t go far enough.
“To just blame bars, and young people, is a little myopic,” Kypreos said. “There are a lot of places people can go and spread the virus. Closing down bars is a solution, but I’m afraid it’s putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.”
Kypreos said he’s in a better position than most, considering that the distillery can still sell its product curbside along with hand sanitizer and cocktail kits. He feels for those who don’t have those options, for whom he says “this may be the final blow.”
”Then there’s their staff,” he said. “These people have not been working for two months, you’re bringing them back on and there’s employment and unemployment issues, and now you’re letting them go again.”
Jason Pollard, managing partner of The Usual, a cocktail bar in Fort Worth, said he hoped the state would be pressured to help owners this time around who have “done our part to keep our staff and our communities safe.”
”I think this is probably the right decision after a series of bad decisions that got us to this point,” Pollard said. “But there needs to be real, thoughtful and significant assistance, or a lot of Texas bars may never recover.”
Austin Gurley, general manager of High & Tight, a bar, music venue and barbershop in Deep Ellum, called the shutdown “unfortunate,” though necessary.
The bar had already reopened at 50% of capacity with about half its staff, taking temperatures at the door and requiring masks of all patrons.
”It was going well,” Gurley said, “but my staff was starting to express worries about coming to work. So as far as the health of our staff, it seems like the thing to do at the moment.”
In the last couple of weeks, more than 60 local bars and restaurants had reported cases of COVID-19 among their staffs, which prompted temporary closures for cleaning and quarantining. A few spots even chose to close preemptively ― before they had a case ― because employees were nervous.
Abbott, in an interview Friday with WFAA’s Cynthia Izaguirre, said he probably should have delayed opening bars.
“The opening of bars, if I recall correctly, was around the Memorial Day time period,” he said. “And in hindsight, that should have been delayed, especially now knowing how rapidly coronavirus could spread in the bar setting.”
He also addressed the fact that Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther, who previously defied the governor’s shutdown, now pledges to work with bar owners to protest this new order.
“What will you do to force bar owners to follow the rules when Shelley Luther didn’t have to?” asked Izaguirre.
“Anybody who has a business who needs to earn a living from that business has to be incredibly frustrated. But we also need to make sure that these businesses operate in ways to ensure that they don’t spread the coronavirus,” Abbott said.
Why just bars?
Christi Rudolph, who opened The Holy Grail Pub in Plano in 2009 with her husband, said she found out about the shutdowns while scrolling through social media Friday morning after several of her staff members arrived at the neighborhood pub to prepare for lunch service.
“I had to send them all home. We had absolutely no idea anything like this was coming,” she said.
Rudolph said she was frustrated with the governor’s handling of the issue and his cut-off for which establishments must close and which ones can stay open.
According to the new order, bars and similar establishments with more than 51% of their gross receipts from alcohol sales must shut down. Rudolph said that hurts small independent businesses like hers that serve food and have been diligently following all safety guidelines.
“Anybody that has over 51% sales in alcohol can’t operate right now, but restaurants can,” she said. “We operate just like a restaurant. But we’re over the alcohol threshold, and I don’t understand why our governor has been using this alcohol percentage.”
Although bars that serve food can continue to offer pickup and delivery, Rudolph said those sales would be minimal with restaurant dining rooms still open. She said it would have been better if the initial shutdowns had lasted longer rather than reopening for a few weeks only to have to close again.
And without knowing how long the mandatory shutdown will be in place, Rudolph said she had no idea what to do with her staff, all of the food in her refrigerators, or herself. She said she just hopes that her business, which is one of the few independent food establishments in its neighborhood, can survive.
“We have to take it one day at a time, I guess. It’s already been so touch and go. It’s already scary,” she said. “I’m hopeful and I’m determined, but it’s hard because there isn’t a real future we can look to and say, ‘This is what it looks like on the other side.’ And that’s what’s been so painful. What is the other side? We thought we had made it to the other side.”
