The state of Mississippi takes another step at restarting its economy today with gyms, barber shops, and beauty salons allowed to reopen.
Meanwhile Beach Boulevard is popping. The quarter-mile stretch of old downtown Bay St. Louis is alive as bars and restaurants are open for business.
“Thousands of restaurants are set to close their doors for good,” Governor Tate Reeves stated making the announcement on reopening.
“They can’t hold on for much longer. Carry-out and drive-thru services are great, but most family-owned restaurants don’t have drive-through windows. Their staff has been among the hardest hit.”
It was last Thursday these establishments were allowed to reopen under strict guidelines by the state to maintain social distancing, cleanliness and sanitizing.
At the Blind Tiger, bartender Ashley described their efforts to merge good food, great service and the wellbeing of their customers.
“We have a line, we take people’s temperatures at the door, we want to make people happy, and we have dine-in tables we try to keep our [social] distance there, too.”
Ask anyone dining at one of the waterside restaurants or walking along Beach Boulevard and the consensus was about the same:
“I think its working, and I think it’s a wonderful thing, I know there’s pros and cons, but I think its working so far,” Resident Tom Welty said.
Joey is a local businessman, “I think it’s a good thing, we need to get cranked back up as soon as possible,” he says with a nod of concern about the virus coming back. “And we’ll hopefully find out in a short time if it’s going to be OK or not.”
Joey is very happy about the restart of the economy because for him… “I’m in the vacation rental business and for the first time this past week I’m starting to get bookings rather than cancellations.”
