Restaurants prepare for Ohio’s COVID-19 health restrictions to end tomorrow

DAYTON — As the state prepares to drop most COVID-19 health restricts Wednesday, restaurants are deciding what changes they will make and what restrictions they may keep.

Restaurants in the state have been operating at limited capacity, implementing social distancing and mask wearing for the past year.

Now that restrictions are lifting, restaurants are sharing mixed feelings about Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision.

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“I’m pretty happy about it honestly. I miss seeing people face to face,” said Yareth Rios, a server at El Rancho Grande.

“When you have to social distance it’s really hard to get more people in here, but now we can do that.”

El Rancho Grande on Brown Street plans to increase the number of customers it allows inside and bring back tables it had to remove.

Rios said the restaurant is choosing to keep up with sanitizing and mask wearing.

“We’re keeping the masks on. We’re having everyone require masks still until we get them seated.”

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Starting Wednesday, DeWine said COVID rules will be up to each business.

At Chipotle on Brown Street, the employees will still wear masks.

“To me it doesn’t really bother me, but we work and we still wear our masks for the safety of our customers,” said Michael, a worker at Chipotle.

“I really like the fact that we can get to that place to where we once were,” Rios said.

The Ohio Restaurant Association did a survey last month asking restaurants how they think things would go leading into the later part of this year.

Seventy-eight percent of restaurants said they believe if they continue to operate at their current capacity, then they can stay open for nine months or more. Forty-seven percent of respondents say they can operate indefinitely.

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