As LA County lifts its outdoor dining ban, not every restaurant is rushing to reopen patio seating.
Suzanne Tracht, the chef and owner of Jar restaurant on Beverly Boulevard, says she put thousands of dollars into preparing for outdoor dining, only to have to shut it down in November and layoff several employees.
"Some people are calling 'well, when are you going to open? When are you going to open?' Well, what is safe? What is worth it?" she says. "It keeps going back and forth. It's very confusing. It's really hard to bring a whole staff in and get tents, heaters and situate, and then boom you are closed again."
The bad weather and other factors have Tracht taking her time about resuming outdoor dining.
"We put it out to our waitstaff, our front of the house, how they feel about coming back. Some people are scared until they get the vaccination they don't want to come back," she says.
There some new rules this time around, including no more than six people per table who all live together
"If you're dining, you are going out, it is supposed to be one household. Yeah, right," she says.
LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer says if people care about keeping small businesses afloat, they'll follow the rules.
"Just because some sectors have reopened, doesn't mean that the risk of community transmission has gone away. It hasn't," Ferrer says.
While LA County's numbers are improving, they're still high. Tracht notes her restaurant is near Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She sees the ambulances coming and going. She knows COVID remains a threat and says she takes the safety of her staff and patrons "very, very seriously."