Restaurants in San Francisco can prepare provide indoor dining as of September 30, the city and county moved from the state’s coronavirus red tier designation to Orange. Earlier this month, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, in coordination with city health and economic officials, announced that the city plans to start eating indoors at a capacity by 25% for up to 100 people, while using national and local indicators for coronavirus infections. The state’s four-tier color system, ranging from purple, red, orange and yellow, takes into account daily new cases and total infection as a percentage of the county’s population. San Francisco Indicators Get a more granular accounting of hospitalization data, contact tracing capacity, testing, and PPE supply.
The city is developing its own indoor dining councils in close collaboration with the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. “We were pleased today to see that, as expected, San Francisco has upgraded to statewide orange,” a GGRA representative wrote. “We have worked closely with the city on the indoor dining guidelines and look forward to the release of these final guidelines from the Department of Health tomorrow.” Although in theory restaurants could open as early as tomorrow for meals at limited capacity, businesses are expected to take longer than that to digest and adapt to the guidelines released today.
“I don’t plan to open for [indoor dining]. It just doesn’t make sense financially,” said Kim Alter, owner and chef of Hayes Valley’s Nightbird restaurant. comfort. East.”
Alter, which is a key member of the Bay Area Hospitality Coalition, reviewed the guidelines with its peers before it was released. Even still, she is unconvinced of the practicality of indoor dining for many restaurants like hers, mentioning that the more casual company restaurants are the ones that are opening right now. “I think a restaurant that has a bigger footprint could accommodate more diners,” she said of who it might work. “For me, I could have 10 dinners [at limited capacity]“, she added, explaining that it would be one of her worst working days by pre-COVID standards.
Its priorities are more on building parklets, which it is also in no rush to do, as it brings its own complications and costs, she said. “I would lose less money if I closed,” Alter said due to increased insurance and other overhead costs.
