CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago restaurants now have a date to look forward to, next week, to get customers back into outdoor tables.
Glenn's Diner on Montrose Avenue, near the Brown Line, closed for eight weeks and furloughed staff. Half came back when the restaurant offered carryout as an option a couple of weeks ago, general manager Debbie Edick said.
Mayor Lightfoot announced Thursday that restaurants will be allowed to serve diners in outdoor settings, such as patios, beginning Wednesday June 3, as the city begins to reopen amid the pandemic. At Glenn's, that will help — a little.
The restaurant has tables on the sidewalk that it uses during warm weather.
"You can have a maximum of six people per table, and tables have to be six feet apart," Edick says of city protective guidelines. "And you still have to allow the pedestrians to pass and keep them at six-feet distance.
"So, that's where it gets a little bit trickier. Maybe if we can do it, it will be three tables."
Restaurants that have rooftops and large doors that open up to the outside are in a better position, she says. Among those more fortunate venues is Il Culaccino near McCormick Place, which had already invested in a "four seasons" room with moveable walls and roof.
"With this new reality that's settling in, it's going to be the most usable space in the entire restaurant," managing partner Frank Ruffolo told the Noon Business Hour on Thursday.
Chicago will lag a few days behind the rest of Illinois, which got permission from Gov. JB Pritzker to let restaurants offer outdoor dining — provided there are safeguards in place — beginning Friday May 29.
The head of the Illinois Restaurant Association, Sam Toia, says this may be a blessing in disguise. He said opening on the less-busy day of Wednesday instead of a Friday will probably help restaurants ease into the transition.
"We saw, in our neighboring state of Wisconsin, people just come out in droves," he tells WBBM Newsradio's Craig Dellimore.
Indoor dining won't occur until Phase 4 of Restore Illinois, and even then there will be spacing and capacity requirements.
