By Sheldon Spackman

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Lots of work for local restaurants before reopening

May 8, 2020 | 5:37 PM

With the province allowing for the partial reopening of restaurants to dine-in customers starting Thursday (May 14), local restaurant owners are offering their thanks to the community for its support during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brennen Wowk, owner/operator of Bo’s Bar & Stage in Red Deer, says they’ve been running a successful take-out program for the past six weeks, and is cautiously optimistic about the impact reopening for dine-in customers will have.

“Our priority is in creating a safe environment for both our guests and our team members. Bo’s is one of the biggest rooms in town and it enables us to put measures in place that ensures social distancing will occur,” he says.

Wowk notes they’re currently trying to build operational, and health and safety policies that will create that safe environment.

“We weren’t given a lot of notice,” notes Wowk. “Restaurants are going to be operating under completely different capacities than what they were before, in the sense of just different operational policies will have to be put in place. With that being said, a lot of restaurants are playing catch up and trying to figure out what best practices look like and how we can protect our team and guests as they come in.”

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Wowk admits he’s unsure what day they’ll reopen.

“We are letting the policy and the standards which we’re trying to create dictate that. So for a May 14 date, I do think it is somewhat rushed in the sense that there’s not a playbook going out to the restaurant industry right now on how they should open.”

The government is allowing cafes, restaurants, pubs and bars to reopen at 50 per cent seating capacity. For Bo’s, Wowk says they’ll likely start off with a smaller number less, then work towards 50 per cent by mid-June.

Wowk is looking forward to begin bringing bring staff furloughed by the pandemic in mid-March.

“We are constantly in communication with our team, creating policy together that enables us to ensure they feel comfortable being back in this environment,” remarks Wowk. “We’re just trying to take the time to ensure when we reopen, we’re doing our due diligence to ensure that everyone is safe and we can get back to a point at which the world gets back to normal as soon as possible.”

Rieley Kay, owner of Cilantro and Chive and Moes Pizza Co. in Lacombe, admits everything they do comes down to the health and safety of their community, staff and guests.

Kay says neither restaurant will be opening to dine-in customers just yet.

“We just want to be able to continue being able to serve in the best, safest, and most efficient way possible,” says Kay. “And right now, leaving our doors closed to the public coming in is the best way we know.”

Kay says closing when the pandemic took over forced them to evaluate a lot of their business.

“We have adjusted to curbside pickup and delivery within Lacombe, and online ordering was a big part of that,” he explains. “So we closed and reevaluated how we could do online ordering. Once we found an applicable program that we were able to execute on a high level, we brought back a few of our team and have been operating like that for the last three weeks now.”

As for Moe’s Pizza Co., Kay says they will continue to operate as primarily a pickup and delivery operation. But he admits he’s surprised to see restaurants included in Stage 1 of the Province’s relaunch plan, pointing out a number of questions he’d like to see answered.

“Fifty per cent capacity, what does that look like, does it have to be within six feet of each other?” asks Kay. “What type of face masks do we need to use and that kind of thing as well. Ultimately, it comes down to making sure that our staff and our guests are being looked after and are in a safe environment and we just can’t guarantee that right now.”