Fresno-area restaurants must halt indoor dining. Under Newsom’s order, what’s allowed?
Restaurants in Fresno, Merced, Kings and Tulare counties must stop indoor dining and offer only patio dining, takeout and delivery.
And local restaurant owners are not happy about it.
Gov. Gavin Newsom made the order – effectively immediately – Wednesday afternoon in an effort to target counties with spiking levels of coronavirus. All 19 counties on the state’s watch list must follow the order for the next three weeks.
Along with restaurants, businesses in several other categories must move their operations outside, where the virus is less likely to spread, or close. Also included are wineries and tasting rooms, movie theaters, museums, zoos, and family entertainment centers like bowling alleys.
All bars must close, even if they are only operating outdoors.
The state is forming a “strike team” of seven state agencies, including the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, to enforce the new rules. Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties have all issued their own health orders echoing the state’s – or will soon – and plan to enforce them.
“It’s going to be a financial blow, that’s for sure, especially for the people who don’t have a patio,” said Chuck Van Fleet, president of the Fresno chapter of the California Restaurant Association and owner of Vino Grille & Spirits.
The restaurant was just getting close to returning to the level of business it had before the pandemic.
Van Fleet said he expects some restaurants will return to doing just takeout and delivery.
Either way, it will mean some workers are laid off as restaurants won’t need as many hosts and servers, he said.
Timing before July 4 couldn’t be worse
The owner of Pismo’s Coastal Grill, Westwood BBQ and Yosemite Ranch said the changes would likely lead to some layoffs of hourly employees, too.
“During the original pandemic (closure) we dropped 85% overnight,” said owner Dave Fansler. “We have now clawed our way back to 15% behind last year and now we’ll probably have a setback of another 40% or 50% potentially. It puts us back in the loss column.”
The timing of the changes was difficult for several reasons.
Patio dining often lags in July, one of the hottest months in Fresno, as people don’t want to linger outside in 100-degree temperatures.
On Wednesday, restaurant owners were scrambling to call customers with reservations indoors to see if they were OK switching to outdoors.
And since the order was effective immediately, they were also wondering what to do with the food they ordered for what would have been a busy Fourth of July weekend.
“What the governor doesn’t understand is his timing sucks,” Van Fleet said. “If he would have done this Monday, it would have saved us a lot of money. We ordered food for the whole week. Our fridges are full. I’ve got 48 cases of wine that I don’t need anymore.”
Are restaurants being unfairly singled out?
Van Fleet also was frustrated that gyms – indoor places where people are breathing heavily and potentially spreading COVID-19 – weren’t a part of the order.
Fansler said he was frustrated with how the governor seems to single out restaurants, but not other businesses that get crowded.
“Why does he always take it out on restaurants, but you can go over to Walmart or Costco and people are climbing all over each other and he does nothing about that?” he said.
Some restaurants are already adding tables to outdoor spaces to bump up their patio dining business.
Toledo’s restaurants were also back to doing more than 90% of its regular business before the governor’s order. Now, the two restaurants that are open – in Clovis and at Herndon and Milburn avenues in Fresno – will serve only on their patios, along with takeout and delivery. The Clovis location has five patio tables and the Fresno location has seven.
It’s frustrating and will mean some employees will have their hours cut back, but no one will be laid off, said Jesse Toledo, son of the restaurants’ founders and co-owner of the Milburn location.
The positive side of the situation is that the restaurant has already learned how to ramp up its takeout business and signed up for delivery services, he said.
The order comes in counties that have spent more than three consecutive days on the state’s watch list. Fresno County first landed on the list June 8 after surpassing an 8% positive test rate.
As of Tuesday, the county had reached 5,008 cases countywide and 73 deaths, with numbers continuing to grow.
The short-term pinch on restaurants, however, might be worth the long-term goal, Toledo said.
“Me personally, I’m not saying I’m happy about this situation, but I want us to get healthy,” he said. “I want everything to end, so if it means suffering a little bit so we can prosper a lot in the future, that’s better than me just making sales and putting everybody at risk.”
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 3:46 PM.
