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UPDATED: 2:30 p.m.
Gov. Phil Murphy in a tweet said starting 6 a.m. this Friday, restaurants may open for indoor dining at 25% capacity, and with social distancing between tables.
This is the second time Murphy has announced indoor dining could resume. With only three days’ notice, as coronavirus case counts began to rise outside the region, the state pulled back on a similar announcement that restaurants could serve customers inside starting on July 2.
“Our job now is to ensure that this reopening only leads to future announcements expanding the indoor capacity limits and that we do not have to take a step backward," he said.
Since mid-March, restaurants have been limited to takeout. Outdoor dining resumed in June. Last week, he announced gyms could reopen at 25% capacity.
In Cherry Hill, Nick Fifis, the owner of Ponzio’s Diner, told KYW Newsradio he was thankful for the chance to reopen his dining room to customers.
“We put partitions up. We put signs up. We’re going to clean the bathrooms every 15 minutes. We’re going to look to hire, put a sanitation person on,” Fifis said.
Fifis said overall, his business has been down by more than half since the virus hit. He appreciates the opportunity to reopen, but said four days is not a lot of time to retrain employees and restock food.
In his tweet about restaurants this morning, the governor said, "Reopening responsibly will help us restore one of our state’s key industries while continuing to make progress against #COVID19."