PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Starting Sunday, COVID-19 restrictions are easing at restaurants and bars in Philadelphia's suburbs. That includes the resumption of bar service and the increase of indoor dining capacity.
Patrons will be able to sit at the bar at suburban restaurants, without having to order food with drinks in the establishments. In addition, there will be no curfew on when drinks have to be removed from tables and indoor dinning will increase to 75% capacity.
"Demand is definitely through the roof," said Justin Weathers, co-owner of Stove and Co., a suburban restaurant group. His establishments include Stove and Tap in West Chester, Malvern and Lansdale, and Al Pastor in Exton.
"We are actually not adding more tables in," he said, citing the large bars at his restaurants.
"You'll be able to fit 30, 40 more people in a day," he continued, "and we just want to really kind of take our time with it and make sure it's just not another ... bloodbath on the services. So if there is space to put in tables, we'll kind of slowly start adding them in."
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With more people getting vaccinated and feeling more comfortable with going out again, Weathers said the curve ball is that with high demand, there is an industry-wide lack of employees. Many got out of the industry earlier in the pandemic.
"If you look everywhere," he said, "there's help wanted signs."
Indoor capacity is also being raised to 75% at theaters, casinos and malls.
Philadelphia officials, however, won’t be easing city restrictions until April 30 at the earliest.
Meanwhile in New Jersey, you can't saddle up to the bar just yet.
Recent relaxing of restrictions in the Garden State include an increase of capacity for indoor and outdoor events. State officials now allow up to 200 people at outdoor gatherings. In addition, large venues that seat 2,500 people can expand up to 20% capacity indoors, and 30% occupancy for outdoor events.