San Francisco temporarily suspends indoor dining again
Indoor dining is coming to a halt across the Bay Area, beginning in San Francisco this weekend, and in three other counties within days.
Reacting to surging coronavirus numbers, public health officials in Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Marin set next Tuesday as the day all restaurants will return to take-out and outdoor seating.
San Francisco's indoor ban started at midnight Saturday. "It does seem like the restaurant business gets kicked in the teeth more than the others," reacted Gordon Drysdale, Culinary Director at Scoma's Restaurant at Fisherman's Wharf. "It appears we are the fall guy for the surges."
Health experts say restaurants are risky because households mix, people stay for extended periods, and they remove their facial coverings to eat and drink.
But after nine hard months, the restaurant industry is reeling at this dramatic rollback.
"Catastrophic, would that be an okay description?", said Drysdale. "It makes it harder to survive until Spring and we'd like to be here in the Spring."
The changes affect about half the Bay Area population, approximately 4 million people.
Napa County could be next, depending on which state tier it lands on when new numbers are released next Tuesday.
The other 4 counties have either shifted tiers, or expect to, so elected to adopt more restrictive measures.
"Our health officials are looking to the rest of the country and saying we don't want to be Chicago, New York, or Boston," said Laurie Thomas, Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. "But this is very damaging because our industry is on its last gasp."
Thomas says the indoor shutdown potentially affects 3500 San Francisco establishments.
She questions the widsom of shifting people from restaurants, where there are precautions, into private homes where there may be none.
"Lots of people who had to cancel parties over the weekend said they would just have to do it at home," said Thomas," so back into the home situation which we know is driving transmission."
And unlike the initial round of pandemic shutdowns, no federal stimulus money is on the way.
"There's no safety net for EDD money for employees, no safety net for the businesses, it's not like Germany where they say shut down for the greater good and we'll pay you to compensate you," noted Thomas.
The new restrictions also coincide with the arrival of chilly, wintry weather. "It's cold and rainy, nobody is going to sit and eat outside so this really is going to kill our business," said Tareq Fakhouri, owner of two downtown San Rafael restaurants, Crepevine and Cascabel.
Friday evening, city crews arrived to close several blocks of 4th Street to allow for outdoor tables to be set up, but in the drizzle they were unoccupied.
"Either shut everyone down completely or allow us to run our businesses in a safe way," fumed Fakhouri, dreading having to lay off employees again.
"Now there's no help for them, and restaurants have to close until who knows when, so how will we survive?", said Fakhouri. "Some will have to close and never come back!"
At Scoma's, booths and tables were occupied Friday night, some diners unaware they would be the last served inside for awhile.
At the 55-year-old venue, indoor dining provides ambiance their makeshift patio cannot.
Developing a take-out business was also something new, and not without challenges."We're doing it because we have to, but the food never comes out of the box the way it went in," said Drysdale.
The restaurant's tourist-heavy location is also deserted now. "Food delivery guys think we're in the middle of nowhere so don't come pick up the food and it sits here until the end of the night and the customers blame us," lamented Drysdale.
"We once had a vibrant scene outside our door with 20 million people a year walking by, but now it's empty like Bladerunner."
Other Bay Area counties also experiencing surging infections have hit pause on reopenings, but not announced new restrictions.