So, I guess, from what you’ve said, restaurants as we’ve known them – places to get professionally-prepared and often artfully-presented food – fresh and hot from the kitchen – are basically history. Because few will survive for the next 1-2 years without dine-in customers or at half capacity; especially not those in the “upscale” category or the small hole-in-the-wall paces that I love.
I’m willing to take the risk that you alluded to, “just to have a meal”. I’m of the Old Fart persuasion, one of those in the “high risk group” that’s “old” and therefore, in the view of some, disposable. Yet, I’m still willing to take the chance rather than live like a WWIII survivor. I’d rather have restaurants post signs saying “Warning: Dining in a Restaurant May Be Hazardous to Your Health”, than have them say “Closed”.
Without restaurants it’ll be a dreary existence for me. I’m not a good cook, as you seem to be. I’m used to dining out regularly. I’m willing to go into a packed restaurant (with good ventilation and low level noise/talking) to enjoy life. If I get the covid, so be it. My chances of dying are actually miniscule. Quality of life has to be balanced with life itself, as cancer patients know all too well.
I’m not sure Honkman’s point was that few restaurants will survive, as much as it was the risk to dining in a crowded restaurant is real and that diners will need to assess their personal risk level before going out and restaurants will probably need to change their current operational models. None of that is preventing you from making a decision to dine out once restaurants begin to reopen.
We’re in San Diego which hasn’t been hit nearly as hard as L.A, NYC and some other metro areas. Perhaps our local govt. learned from last years’ Hep A outbreak (tho’ I doubt it). If we as diners make good choices for ourselves about where we dine, and restaurants get creative about how they’re going to deal with all the factors they are required to for reopening, then we may begin to enjoy some dining options outside our homes. You may only have 1 risk factor, but I have 2. I don’t know if you caught the article in the U/T late last week where county health provided data on the underlying conditions in those that had died from Covid-19. 54% of them had my 2nd risk factor. There have been 209 Covid-19 related deaths in SD county, of those 113 are due to 1 single risk factor that is not age, high blood pressure. And altho’ my blood pressure has been well controlled for many years, I may or may not be more at risk than the diner next to me. I am not particularly risk adverse, but I’m also not particularly eager to test the limits of my own personal health.
I miss dining out, I miss going to happy hour, I miss trying new restaurants and new food, but for the immediate future, I’ll have to be okay with that and understand that at some point down the road I will be able to do that again. In the meantime my neighbors and I are going to give SDOC a whirl. What is SDOC? Social Distancing Outside Cocktails. Everyone brings their own beverage of choice, any food they want to eat, a folding chair and we meet in the middle of our street, 6’ apart of course
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Interesting assortment of restaurants that signed the petition. Seems like restaurants that are better adapted to partnering with delivery services, at least in terms of what they offer.
those who were infected were sitting downwind, positioned between the AC and an exhaust fan
Two of those infected were “upwind” relative to the AC’s supply vent. There was no exhaust fan: the AC unit was recirculating the air, creating a virus-particle-laden eddy on that side of the room.
Like so many other things during this nightmarish two or three months (seems like years), this is so sudden. Restaurants that were confident that re-opening would happen soon may have been able to modify their layouts and print new menus, etc., but others are surely unprepared. I wondered today as we walked in LJ, about the restaurants that are re-opening right away: Are the ingredients fresh? What did they do with the excess tables and chairs? I’m going to wait until after the long weekend to jump into the water.
I wish this were more widely understood. It most directly affects buffets and salad bars. But worries about menus and other shared items (touch-wise) may be excessive.
Speaking of buffets and salad bars, the example of 85C, with re-usable tongs and trays to pick out bakery items, is an interesting one. They’re still doing that, and never paused.
Here’s some sage advice that I read somewhere recently that directly confronts how to deal with the issue of tactile transmission:
“If you keep a glass of wine in each hand, you can’t accidentally touch your face.”
DC…I’m not particularly worried about the freshness of products right now. Anything perishable was most likely sold or given to their employees or frozen. If staples and canned goods are unopened they should still be plenty good. If they were open, they too probably went to employees or were sold. Quite a few restaurants liquidated their inventory when they closed. Farmers, wholesale vendors and, of course, Sysco and to a lesser extent, U.S. Foods in San Diego, should be able to deliver quickly so that inventories are restocked. This part really isn’t very hard
Excess tables and chairs have probably been moved to storage areas that are either on or off premises. I’ve actually seen a few ads for places offering tables, chairs and serviceware for sale.
I’m in no rush to get back out there. I want to see how my fellow San Diegans handle reopening. Are they respectful of the rules and other diners, or are they going to be bad actors and insist on crowding spaces, not wearing masks where required, engaging in risky behavior and so forth. And how are the restaurants going to deal with the few bad apples.
Frankly, I’d really like to see them close India St and a few others and try street dining. I think it would be a great summer investment.
Judging from pictures of SD restaurants posted online today, social distancing is a sham. Think I’ll stick with take out and cooking at home for awhile.
Well, that’s unfortunate and pretty unhelpful. I hope it doesn’t continue like that, overall. I don’t like some of the rules nor the way they’ve been decided, but I’ll abide by them. All of us need to at least cooperate.
I’d love to see that tried. But I’m a fair-weather diner, and will only dine al fresco when its not too hot, not too cold (heaters not withstanding), not raining, and not too windy. Picky, picky, picky. At other times, it’s indoors (with a/c when it’s hot) or no-go.
I think there’s a plan in the works to close down 5th in the Gaslamp on Saturday nights. India is a similar strip, but a different demographic.
