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STEUBENVILLE -- After surviving on takeout and delivery orders for the past two months, local restaurateurs are looking forward to resuming operations Friday -- even if it's only to offer patio dining.
Under the governor's order, restaurants and bars can open outdoor serving areas Friday and their indoor dining rooms on May 21, provided they follow established health and safety protocols, including social distancing, wearing face masks and sanitizing common areas and implements.
"Of course, the state has highly regulated it," Frankie DiCarlantonio, director of business operations at Scaffidi's, said.
"The state has regulated highly -- not the occupancy, but guidelines for things like how people have to be spaced out and physical barriers. We will be following those, of course. Only parties of 10 or fewer will be allowed at this point, so even if someone made a conscious decision to come out with 12 or 15 people, we're only allowed to seat 10 of them together. All our employees will be wearing masks, front and back, sanitizing high-use areas frequently and sanitizing items that customers may share, like menus and salt and pepper shakers. We're trying to mitigate risk."
DiCarlantonio said a lot of those are things they were doing even before the governor required restaurants throughout the state to close March 15.
"We recognized how deadly (the virus) could be, so we were doing it," he said.
Franco Carapellotti said his family's eateries -- Bennigan's and Brooklyn Bagel on the Square, both located in Franciscan Square -- will be following all of the social distancing and other health and safety guidelines.
"At Brooklyn Bagel on the Square, we will enforce the 6-foot social distancing (mandate) and are installing a plexiglass divider at the checkout," he said. "We will have all outdoor seating spaced out to 6 feet apart. All of our employees will be wearing gloves and masks.
"At Bennigan's, we will have all of our front-of- house employees wearing masks, and outdoor seating will be set up for safe, 6-feet distancing with no bar seating available outside. We will temporarily switch to one-time use paper menus."
Carapellotti said they'd already had solid cleaning schedules at both locations, "but those will now be beefed up and we will concentrate on keeping all high-touch areas in both locations frequently sanitized.
"We also plan on doing wellness checks for all employees when they enter the building and working with them to ensure that every guest we have feels safe and comfortable in either establishment," he said.
"Our goal for both locations is the safety and well-being of all our employees and customers and we are confident in the plans that we do have in place to ensure that," he added. "While we ware looking forward to having guests come back through the door we are still going to be providing delivery and grocery packs at Bennigan's, our drive-thru will be open at Brooklyn Bagel and we will be delivering (from) both."
DiCarlantonio said in the past, no had to worry abut how many people sat down at a table or whether people used face masks.
"But these are different times, we'll roll with the punches," he said. "We want to reopen, but at the same time we want to keep ourselves safe, our employees safe and other customers safe."
He also said it's no secret people in his business lost money because of the closing order.
"We were fortunate, we made it through the storm," he said. "We were fortunate, not that we'd ever planned for the coronavirus to come, but we sat down and had plans in place if we had to close the business down for a bit. We had a plan and were able to institute it."
DiCarlantonio pointed out patrons will need to be patient.
"I think I speak for everybody when I ask people for patience at this time," he said. "We definitely don't have as many tables as we once did. Things may look longer in terms of service, but there are additional regulations.
"This is the new normal, and we need to adjust to the 'new normal' when customers return."
"Restaurants will fill up quicker, it won't take that many tables or customers to fill it up," Carapellotti said.