Restaurants opening at 50%

On Monday many restaurants across the State of Indiana reopened at 50% capacity.

Reopened at 50% capacity.

Some local restaurants are slowly getting back to business, but are making extra provisions to ensure customer and employee safety.

News 18's marvin bills spoke with a local restaurant owner and joins us live with more on the changes they are making.

Marvin?

Good evening meredith and to you all at home.

I spoke with john christos who co- owns red seven in downtown lafayette, along with several other local restaurants.

He says they are taking extra making provisions to ensure that customers and employees are in good hands, as they slowly get back to business.

25-5 monday started off busy for co-owner of red seven john christos.

With plans to open his restaurant at 50% capacity, employees are hard at work making sure they are prepared.

"we've kind of done extensive cleaning over the last couple of weeks and we are intensifying it even today."

Tables are cordoned off and spaced.

The bar area is without seats so that people are socially distanced and far apart.

"we are limiting which tables we can sit and when we can sit them in hopes of keeping that social distance."

The christos family owns other restaurants in greater lafayette and they are following the same procedures at each one.

He says it's been a balancing act having all of the restaurants closed during this time.

"it's really been kind of a major, major adjustment.

Trying to slow down from basically doing 100 mph to basically 5 mph or actually in some cases 0."

He says it's a challenge for many restaurants to slowly re-open half-full.

"obviously restaurants are not built to be run at 50% capacity.

But we want people to get a little bit more comfortable.

We want them to come in and see exactly what kind of precautions we are taking making sure we keep them safe and keep our staff safe."

Customer kim allbaugh says she enjoys dining in at the local restaurant but not this soon.

"i am choosing to wait a few weeks.

I want to see the results of people going in and dining at 50% capacity.

"whether the rates go up or go down.

Maybe closer may 24th is when i might do that."

Christos: "we want people get a good feel for what we are trying to accomplish and then at their pace come back an visit us whenever they feel comfortable."

Employees are also required to have their temperature taken upon arrival.

The christos family is still offering their carry-out options.

You can find link to their website on this story at wlfi dot com.

From home, marvin bills news 18.

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