Are Macon restaurants, businesses ready to reopen amid COVID-19? It’s complicated
The customer in the surgical mask had not noticed there was a wait to enter the hardware store.
On a recent morning, the customer, an elderly man, was about to walk inside when another man with a clipboard who was minding the door asked the customer to hold up.
The doorman, also wearing a mask, explained that only 10 patrons at a time were allowed inside because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an instant, the customer, who looked to be in his late 70s, tugged his mask below his mouth and erupted.
“Y’all are taking this too far!” the customer, suddenly furious, boomed as he raised his hand and middle finger and jabbed it in the doorman’s face.
“F--- you!” the customer shouted before tramping back to his car in a huff and leaving.
As the customer stamped off, the doorman, unshaken, suggested the customer make use of “your mama’s toothbrush to clean out that dirty mouth.”
The scene, which played out recently at an Ace Hardware on Riverside Drive in north Macon was likely uncommon but seemed emblematic of an unease that has settled in here a month and half into the COVID-19 crisis.
Whether we like it or not, an uninvited stress has come calling. And here in the Deep South, coming to grips with how we forge ahead is at a crossroads. How soon is too soon to get close to each other again?
A number of suffering Georgia businesses such as restaurants — which were given the the OK to again offer dine-in service — are taking cautious steps welcome those itching to eat out. Proprietors of some eateries, though, are in no hurry. Safety is certainly something they’re taking into account, but the bottom line for some will be whether they can afford to half-open and still turn profits.
So a decent gauge of how willing people are to return to some normal semblance of normalcy may run through their stomachs.
Slowly starting to reopen
Cesare Mammarella, who owns the Bearfoot Tavern in downtown Macon, reopened his eatery to dine-in customers on Wednesday.
But on the eve of doing so, he wasn’t sure restaurantgoers were willing.
“I think it’s 50-50,” he said. “There are some people just ready to get back to some sort of social interaction, albeit somewhat limited. And there’s gonna be other people that are just still in their houses and trying to minimize exposure.”
He said that for days the phone at his pub-style establishment on Second Street had been “blowing up” with callers wanting to know when the place was reopening.
“I think people just miss the whole social interaction aspect,” Mammarella said. “I don’t know if people are still gonna be scared and just do the curbside (service), or if there are gonna be some people who just want to be able to sit down and have some sort of normalcy in their life.”
His restaurant closed March 20 and did not offer takeout service in the five weeks it was closed.
On the front windows, a trio of St. Patrick’s Day paintings of leprechauns depict them all, beer mugs in hand, wearing surgical masks.
Current health regulations based on the tavern’s square footage allow as many as 70 patrons at a time now but Mammarella said he was limiting the number to 42.
Some of his employees who’d gathered Tuesday for a reopening meeting sounded ready to get back to work.
“I think there has been a void in a lot of people’s lives that are in this industry,” Mammarella said. “I’m looking forward to seeing some of our regular (customers), people that are here three and four times a week. I miss seeing what’s going on in their life.”
Marion Pinson, a cook at Bearfoot who described himself as a grillmaster, said being out of work was tough, but he figures it was necessary to keep people safe.
“I’m glad for the unemployment and everything,” Pinson, 42, said, “but I’d rather get out and make my own money. I’m ready to go to work, but if they say go back and shelter in place, I will. Because I’m not trying to get sick.”
Still largely on lockdown
On nearby Poplar Street late Tuesday morning, a man in the park that serves as a median there was wearing a surgical mask as he practiced what appeared to be tai chi. His measured moves were hypnotic, though there weren’t many around to notice.
A few minutes later, when a boxcar-size dumpster burst into flames at a construction site up the block, not many gawkers gathered as firefighters put out what might in normal times have been a midday spectacle.
The city remained largely on lockdown.
As of Friday, there had been 10 reported deaths in Bibb County due to COVID-19 complications and 89 people had been hospitalized in the month and a half that officials have kept tabs on the virus.
At Ocmulgee Outfitters on Poplar, which sells outdoor gear and garb, the front doors were open.
A sign over a rack of clothes bore the quote: “The outside is the only place we can truly be inside the world.”
The shop’s manager, Quint Rogers, a fly fishing and kayaking specialist, said earlier this week that he had delivered a number of kayaks to customers.
“The truly outdoor-minded people are doing a little bit better staying sane during this,” Rogers said. “They can’t close the river, they can’t close the woods.”
Rogers, 24, said most people he talks to about the coronavirus crisis “are just kind of over it.”
“They’re ready to get back to normal,” he said. “I would say that everybody is still fairly cautious, but the attitude that I’ve encountered the most is, ‘Man, I just wanna go sit down and have a burger.’”
Hesitant to open
Down the block at Famous Mike’s, a popular hamburger diner, owner Mike Seekins wasn’t so sure.
He had no plans to open his dining room anytime soon. At least not until he gets the feeling it is safe.
Seekins has continued to offer takeout service, though not for his full menu. He has mostly been selling burgers, fries and tater tots.
“The main reason why most people are not opening: It doesn’t make sense money-wise, business-wise,” Seekins said. “If you can only put one person at a four-top table, if you have to keep two chairs between (patrons) for spacing at a bar, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Asked if he thought customers would come if he were to open his dining room now, Seekins said no. “They’re not gonna come.”
Meanwhile, he said to-go orders have sustained the restaurant so far.
The other day, a call came in from City Hall. The mayor’s office needed cinnamon rolls. Seekins obliged.
He seemed upbeat about what lies ahead.
“People that I surround myself with for the most part,” he said, “are thinking positively about coming out of this a better society hopefully.”