Smitty’s had their biggest day since reopening on March 28, with people lined up outside their door. The next day, B.C.’s provincial health officers announced new restrictions to close indoor dining for three weeks.
“We were kind of in shock,” said Smitty’s owner Wendy Herle. “I guess, we’ve seen the numbers going up, but there was no kind of indication that this was going to happen until it happened.”
With no prior warning given, restaurants across the province who have ordered food, beverages, hired staff, are unsure how to proceed in the best way possible.
The official announcement from the provincial government on March 29, stated that indoor dining is banned for a “three-week circuit breaker” until April 19. Restaurants are limited to take-out and patio dining until then.
Many restaurants are now depending on their patios but with the weather still being chilly, Herle questions, “who’s going to sit out there now?”
The local diner luckily has a patio on which Herle planned to get heaters installed. However, the order isn’t supposed to come in until much later.
“if I would have had any indication [of the new orders], I would have put a rush on things to the plumber that’s gonna install them. So when [the restrictions] came down, I don’t want to quickly go out and buy a bunch of heaters when I’m getting some really good ones,” explained Herle.
Installing the heaters would also take a couple of weeks, and Herle said the order won’t come as quickly now as the restrictions have slowed things down.
“We’re just praying for warmer weather so that most of our guests feel comfortable because it’s pretty uncomfortable when you’re sitting outside and it’s cold.” says Herle.
Herle says she’s also very worried about her staff, as she’s forced to lay off a number of them. This includes seasonal employees for the summer.
“This is a time of year that we are teaching our students for the summer. That cuts me right out of any kind of training…and then if summer comes in, and they open the door completely. I won’t have trained staff, so that scares me as well,” said Herle.
Despite the hard hit on her restaurant, Herle said she’s also worried about the safety of the seniors in town and just wants to make sure they’re safe.
Wesley Greve and Lisa Deleo of North Basin Brewing Co. said their business has been doing really well for the past few weeks, and the news of the restrictions was a hard hit.
“We’re lucky that we have the space for some extra patio tables outside, but it’s also not warm enough,” said Deleo. “Currently 50 per cent of our seating was inside, so we just lost that,” said Deleo.
Greve adds that their entire evening sales are also gone since it’s too cold for people to sit outside after the sun goes down. He explains that their sales now are entirely weather dependent. They want to get their patio covered eventually but explain that it’s too expensive for them now.
“It would cost thousands and thousands of dollars to do something like that, and being a new business with zero COVID help, because we don’t have the past years finances to get any kind of relief, we’re pretty much stuck,” said Greve.
They are in the process of getting more tables for their patio at the moment. North Basin also encourages their customers to order food from other local establishments (since they don’t serve meals themselves).
“we’d love to definitely help out the other businesses that don’t have the [patio] space,” said Deleo.
Though the provincial order is until April 19, Greve expresses his concern about if they decide to push it past that date.
“My worry is basically that if it works, she’ll extend it. If it doesn’t work, she’ll extend it. So regardless I think we’re not good,” he said.
Like many other local businesses, they’re frustrated by the lack of consistency. Deleo said that she would like to see the province give the freedom to the establishments themselves to decide whether they want to stay open and follow a level of restrictions, or choose to close.
“I think that restaurants and bars and this industry in particular are probably one of the safer places,” she said. “Can they prove that it is one of the areas where transmission is happening? The cleaning and sanitizing that you have here is better than if somebody was having people over in their home or even at the grocery store.”
For Yaowapa Leena Ferreira at Dolci Thai, she’s more concerned about her own safety and health with the growing number of cases, along with her restaurant’s business.
“This is a little bit scary for me. I’m afraid to open the restaurant actually but we have to” said Ferreira.
She’s been taking all the safety precautions necessary to keep herself, her staff and customers safe. Ferreira decided to open despite her caution about the virus since she already announced it on social media around the opening date. She also hired her staff, and so she doesn’t want to let them go.
“We have to pay people and my staff who come to work, but we still cannot open so I didn’t feel good about it,” Ferreira said.
Dolci Thai opened their doors for the year on April 1. They spent some time renovating the inside of the restaurant, but now cannot have customers sit inside. Although they do have a patio, it needs to be cleaned and set up. For now, they have a few tables outside the restaurant that can seat a few people, but are mostly depending on take-out.
