DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Restaurants and bars in Michigan reopened their doors for indoor dining at 25% capacity on Monday.
Some customers say they’d been counting down the days until they could eat at a restaurant again.
“I’m thrilled that the restaurants are open again. You know in many ways, I’ve kind of enjoyed cooking my own meals at home there, but I still enjoy coming out here,” said William Rosenquist, who was having breakfast at Sophia's House of Pancakes on Monday morning.
The owner of Sophia’s says being able to offer indoor dining is important because carry-out pancakes are a tough sell.
“To keep our employees. To keep our customers. Because 95 percent of our sales is mostly dining. Carry out we’re not doing very well because the restaurant is a pancake house,” said the owner George Smyrnis.
Dinning at 25 percent capacity means they can have about 45 customers in at a time compared to about 180 customers when they’re at full capacity.
“With 25 percent capacity, we’re taking about ten, eleven average tables. So I have almost 40 tables here, so who’s going to wait in the car running the gas you know for an hour? I don’t think it’s going to work," said Smyrnis.
To keep staff and customers safe, the restaurant is continuing to clean and sanitize tables and menus after every customer.
“We spray handles. We spray everything we can. We keep our distance. We keep our mask on. Like whatever guidance we have from the state, we keep it,” Smyrnis said.
And now that it’s easier to get out and support restaurants, it’s especially important to actually do it, Rosenquist said.
"It's too bad a lot of these had to close, but I'm hoping most of the others can succeed," he said.
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