Orillia’s restaurants are still waiting for the green light from the provincial government to open their dine-in services.
While they wait, Studabakers has begun providing a take-out service on Fridays and Saturdays, an initiative they started last week. Owner Joe Winacott says he was surprised by how many customers called in for their take-out service.
“We have a lot of regular customers who were missing Studabakers, so it was nice to see them on the weekend.”
Studabakers closed their doors on March 16, forcing Winacott to lay off 35 employees. Typically, the downtown restaurant would have its summer staff by now which consists of 25 additional workers. The take-out service has enabled at least two staff members to get back to work.
The take-out service will continue at Studabkers until they receive more guidelines from the Ontario government that will prepare them for re-opening their dine-in service.
Winacott has begun preparing his restaurant for re-opening despite not having much information or guidance from the province. He said Studabakers has created an app for Apple and Android mobile users who don’t feel comfortable handling a menu.
“A lot of places are talking about doing throw-away menus. We don’t want to go through that kind of waste keeping the environment in mind, so we thought having an app would be the next best scenario,” Winacott said.
Studabakers is also preparing to put directional lines on the floors, removing some tables assuming the maximum capacity of the restaurant will be 50%, separate entrance and exit doors, sanitization stations for employees and customers, plexiglass at the bar - among other ideas, such as bringing condiments to the customer when requested to be sanitized after each use.
Winacott said there will be a dedicated manager who looks after all transactions to keep employees away from handling cash. The idea is to have all protocols in place prior to the province lifting the ban on dine-in services.
“We want to be ready to go as soon as we get the green light from Ontario,” Winacott said.
St. Louis Bar and Grill owner Brad Watters says he is also waiting on clear guidelines from the provincial government.
“The plan right now is as soon as we can get some sort of a realistic date, we will start to do take-out and pick up," said Watters.
The restaurant closed its doors on March 17, prompting Watters to lay off 28 employees.
That was not something Watters could have imagined when St. Louis opened in West Ridge on Sept. 9 of last year.
“We were very fortunate to be very busy for the first month and we built a very loyal crew with local regulars and community supporters,” Watters reflected.
“To shut that down was very hard. I presume that when we re-open again those people will want to participate in our re-growth.”
The franchise has been thorough in getting locations prepared for the safety protocols that will be put in place once dine-in services re-open.
However, Watters is concerned that operating his restaurant under protocols such as putting plexiglass up at the bar to protect staff and customers could financially hurt the restaurant and its staff even further.
“You start opening things back up in that environment of plexiglass, the most we will hire back is six or seven people. It’s not going to work out for anyone economics-wise,” he explained.
Watters understands the importance of public safety, but he stresses the restaurant experience is a crucial part of his business.
“Don’t tell us we can open in an environment where we are going to fall financially, experience wise and eventually safety-wise because it’s (COVID-19) just not under control yet, then keep us closed,” Watters said.
“At some point there has to be some common sense between the customer and the restaurant. We are going to do our best to provide a safe environment, the customer is going to do that as well, and we are in an area of Ontario that has very few cases," said Watters. "Let’s get back to business.”
As for a timeline, Watters says he doesn’t see his restaurant opening before June 15 and wouldn’t be surprised if it remained closed until even July 1.
“I think they (government health officials) need to do a lot of work to make sure they know what they are doing is correct.”
Brewery Bay Food Co. is also facing an uncertain future. The downtown restaurant closed on March 16, forcing general manager Darren Gallagher to lay off about 50 staff members.
The restaurant is aiming at re-opening for take-out during the last week of May; they are still working out the details on how to make it run smoothly.
“It’s not going to be our full menu, but we will be able to bring the usual Brewery Bay good grub to our customers and hopefully we can make it work,” Gallagher said.
He promises that staff who return to work will keep their physical distance from each other during the process of making food for their customers.
Looking ahead to the possibility of opening their dine-in service in the near future, Gallagher says staff have begun brainstorming on safety protocols.
“We’ve been bouncing ideas off each other and most likely when the government does allow our dine-in service to re-open we assume it will be at 50% capacity and we will sit customers at every other table, and consistently make sure everything is clean and set," he explained.
Gallagher says the restaurant has always had high standards when it comes to their food and the safety of customers and staff; they plan on having even higher standards in place before re-opening.
