Subj : Re: cell service To : Barry Martin From : Nancy Backus Date : Thu Jul 09 2020 23:50:42 -=> Quoting Barry Martin to Nancy Backus on 29-Jun-2020 11:10 <=- NB>>> As of just over a week ago, restaurants here have been allowed to NB>>> have eat-in, with reduced capacity to allow social distancing... BM>> Update: Restaurants in Iowa are being allowed 50% capacity for dine-in BM>> and starting this Friday Illinois at 25%. NB>> I don't think that percentage of capacity has been stated here, just NB>> that social distancing has to be maintained between the tables... and NB>> I heard that some places were limiting the size of parties to six... BM> Both Iowa and Illinois are limiting by percentage of original BM> capacity. I'm not paying close enough attention to know why the numbers BM> were selected -- I'm not going to change them anyway. 50% seems to BM> make sense with restaurant seating: the every-other table, but pretty BM> sure some places like bars are at 25%. Bars make sense at 25%... eliminate bar seating and milling around, and then every-other table, that should reduce it to about 25%... that would be the only way to really enforce the distancing... NB>> No joke needed, though... :) We asked how/what they'd done during NB>> the shutdown... She said that they'd closed entirely for a couple NB>> of months, to protect their extended family from the threat of the NB>> virus, but then opened up for takeout about a month before the NB>> go-ahead for opening for eat-in was given... We thanked her for NB>> being ok with opening for eat-in... :) BM> Always nice to be nice. :) To me makes sense to protect ones self BM> and family; fortunately financial resources to do so. That has been one of our A list restaurants all along, so they recognise us when we show up... we were glad that they were surviving both health wise and business wise... :) BM>> As for around here, it seems the restaurants have been fairly careful BM>> about not putting on their "Open" signage without a largish sign (some BM>> are handmade) to state take-out, etc., only. Not trying to say your BM>> sites were sloppy, just maybe the local restaurant associates, chamber BM>> of commerce, etc., emphasized things a hare differently. NB>> During the shutdown, a lot of places initially just closed, but then NB>> reopened for curbside and/or takeout when it became obvious it wasn't NB>> a short-term thing... Those places (especially chain places) tended NB>> to have big signs, to get people's attention and pull them in... The NB>> smaller places often only had something on the door or in a window, NB>> often from the beginning, stating they were open for takeout only... NB>> During the shutdown, a place that had their OPEN lights on, obviously NB>> could only be doing takeout... It only became less useful when there NB>> finally was again the possibility of being able to eat in... In the NB>> case of the Korean place, they'd been totally shut down (OPEN lights NB>> not on at all) until the point when eat-in became a possibility... so NB>> we had hoped that they'd just been waiting for that rather than do NB>> takeout... but we'd guessed wrong... and couldn't read the signs in NB>> the window when driving by on the busy street... ;0 We'll just have NB>> to wait for them to be ok with opening up, I guess... :) Update... the Korean place now has a large enough sign in the front window to be read from the road, Take-out Only... I'm still hoping they open for eat-in soon... :) NB>> Today we ate in at a Vietnamese place that we'd gone a couple of NB>> times for takeout... we figured they'd be a good chance, since when NB>> we'd done the takeout they'd let us sit at a table inside while NB>> waiting for it to be made... and we guessed right... :) BM> That was a good guess! I'm thinking most places with take-out would BM> have a couple of chairs for customers who need to sit for one reason or BM> another -- they're probably hoping those chairs aren't used as BM> probably technically supposed to sanitize when the customer leaves and BM> that's just more to do. Dunno... some places are just more relaxed altogether anyway... often ethnic, particularly Asian, in my experience.. :) BM> As far as signage here, the larger sites were able to afford (or have BM> provided by corporate) bigger and professional signs; have seen a BM> 'bloom' of "we're open for take-out" signs on the grass near them. BM> The smaller individual shops had anything from hand-printed signs at BM> the entry to printed-on-the-home-computer's printer ones. Local news BM> would do remotes and some of the individually made signs looked very BM> nice! The signage I'm hoping for is the "Yes, we are open for eat-in", especially at our favorite still-closed places... ;) ttyl neb .... Have you seen my mind? It wandered again.... --- EzyBlueWave V3.00 01FB001F * Origin: Tiny's BBS - http://www.tinysbbs.com (454:1/452) .