FORT WORTH (1080 KRLD) - While many restaurants are preparing to welcome back customers on Friday, some are saying, "not yet."
"We're excited to see people again, some of our regulars, and we're excited to be there," says Jonathan Gentry, who owns Kincaid's Hamburgers with his family.
Gentry says the past seven weeks have been eerily different at the restaurant's five locations.
"When we go in the mornings and not having that foot traffic, it's definitely a different feel," says Gentry. "So we're excited to have them back and bring the life back inside."
When Kincaid's does reopen its dining rooms, staffers will be extra proactive in ensuring everyone's safety.
"We can make sure that we're wiping everything down after everybody's left and everybody has a clean space to eat," Gentry says.
Under the executive order that Gov. Abbott announced on Monday, restaurants and other businesses will be limited to 25% capacity, to ensure that proper social distancing is being practiced.
"The person that will be up front cleaning in the dining area will be more or less regulating that and counting that," says Gentry.
Not All Restaurants Will Reopen On Friday
That 25% rule is keeping Red's Bar-B-Que in far north Fort Worth from welcoming customers back into its dining room.
"Our restaurant only holds 26 people," says Amy Schneider, owner of Red's. "Therefore, our occupancy would be like seven customers. And we usually have three to four employees working at all times. So that would mean we would reopen our dining room to serve three to four people."
But Schneider is not complaining.
"We think it's a little too soon, so we're going to wait it out," says Schneider. "We're going to continue to do to go through curbside service like we've been doing and wait for May 18th and see what happens then."
May 18 is the date under Gov. Abbott's order when restaurants can boost their capacities to 50%, barring a major spike in COVID-19 cases.
Schneider says keeping the dining area closed should have little to no impact on business, which she says has been brisk, even throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
"Because we're so small anyways, I would say 75% of our business was to go anyways," Schneider says.
