NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – Life is about to get a bit easier for bars and restaurants in New York City as COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed this week, but owners say they still have a way to go before things return to normal.
Bar seating returns on Monday, indoor capacity goes up to 75% on Friday and curfews will be gradually lifted over the coming month.
"We keep getting good news every few days, which is amazing," said Erin Bellard, co-owner of e's BAR on the Upper West Side.
Bellard said she's breaking even at 50% capacity but that the jump to 75% may not change much.
"75% occupancy is very tricky for small neighborhood restaurants, because we still have to maintain the six-foot rule. Most of us really are not going to be able to add very many seats," she said.
Social distancing rules also mean Bellard's bar, which normally seats 13, will only seat four. Still, she says it feels like progress.
What has been a welcome change, she said, is the end of what became derisively known as "Cuomo snacks." The rule forced everyone who was drinking to also get food.
"The hardest thing to watch was people were ordering it but not eating it, so the amount of food we were throwing away was terrible," Bellard said.
For David Rosen, May marks 14 months since any of the five bars he co-owns in Brooklyn and Queens have served customers.
"We resigned ourselves to kind of closing for the long haul, and I think we're at the end of that long haul now," Rosen said.
One of the bars, Aunt Ginny's in Ridgewood, is reopening this week. But Rosen said his other spots can't come back yet.
"What we really need is a sense of what it's going to take to get the end of those restrictions," he said.
That end point is 100% capacity and no more social distancing, a necessity for his other locations to make money, he said.
"The ability to really get people in a very crowded space—shoulder to shoulder, you know, three or four people deep at a bar—is still necessary for those types of businesses," Rosen said.
