Los Angeles Restaurants Open Outdoor Patios
The people of Los Angeles will soon be enjoying restaurants, pubs, and wine bars again, but there will be a few guidelines to follow. The entire establishments are not open yet. For now, guests will have to be served in outdoor patio settings.
For restaurant owners with the space, adopting these new safety protocols may be inconvenient and expensive but necessary. Welcoming back their staff and customers has been something small business owners have been patiently waiting to do. The patio dining was authorized in late January.
Masks
Face coverings are still required even in restaurants but with certain modifications. All customers need to don a mask before they enter the facility, and they must keep them up while they order and interact with the staff. Once the food and drinks arrive, patrons can remove them, but if the waitstaff comes back to your table, you will need to raise your mask again to protect them.
Children who are younger than two will not have to sport a mask. Guardians are to do their best to keep these small hands from touching objects and items that are not theirs. Kids will not be allowed to roam about either. They must stay with their party.
The employees have strict rules to follow. All staff are required to cover their nose and mouth the entire shift. Individuals working directly with the customers need to shield their eyes. They can do this by wearing a face shield or protective goggles. Dishwashers and cooks must also adhere to these policies even though they do not have direct contact with the consumer.
The Setting
You will not be able to crowd around the bar with your friends. Groups and individuals will be sat at a table, and all of those will be socially spaced. Getting to your table and the restrooms will be a new experience. The establishments should plainly mark directionals on the floor and post signage so that people walk in one direction. The goal of these modifications is to prevent traffic jams and bump ins.
Do not bring more than six people with you, or you will be turned away. Six bodies are the maximum allowable per setting. In addition, managers can only fill the outdoor dining area itself to 50% capacity.
In Los Angeles, you will not be able to sit with individuals who are not in your immediate family. The county does not allow commingling yet. The restaurant owners are being asked to enforce this rule, and some of the things you might see are posters reminding you not to sit with others, or the concierge or waitstaff may mention the regulation to you before they seat you.
To grab a spot at one of these patio settings, you should call ahead and book a time slot. Officials recommend restaurants and wineries do this to prevent overcrowding, and it will mean you don’t have to wait unnecessarily long to be seated.
After you finally made your way to the table, be prepared to look at the menu on your cell phone. To reduce passing paper menus around, many operations created websites where their entire menu and daily specials are posted.
If you want to know how your favorite restaurant will be operating and the hours they will be open, search for them online. Even establishments that were not on the web before have transitioned over to this more user-friendly platform to help their clients and in order to operate more smoothly inside Los Angeles county’s current restaurant regulations.
