MACON, Ga. — Just last week, Piedmont Brewery closed its doors to dine-in seating because of high COVID-19 numbers, but are other downtown restaurants worried about doing the same?
Ryan Smith owns Lazy Susan, and he says the entire pandemic has been a question mark.
"I mean, it's kind of rough. I mean, in this industry, we're a small business and so we don't really have a fallback, and so we have to do what we have to do to stay in business, but at the same time, with with the health of our employees and the health of the public," he said.
He says he's optimistic that a second shutdown won't happen, but he's prepared if so.
"I don't think there's going to be a next restaurant shutdown, but I do think those of us have gone through the first shutdown kind of know how to pivot and make the business work at this point."
"We're going to be going dine-in for as long as the governor thinks we should, but we will don't have outdoor seating and we have moved our entire menu to be to go and pick up accessible," said Smith.
Right across the street from Lazy Susan, there's Bearfoot Tavern. Owner Cesare Mammarella says the pandemic has changed many things.
"We're still nowhere near where we were as far as last year's numbers and the year before. Outside of just those type of challenges -- staffing challenges have been relevant as well. Right now, our business hours are probably 60% of what they used to be," Mammarella said. "Spending a lot more money on hand sanitizer and disinfectant. Some paper goods, so, yeah, it's made for an interesting new business model, one that I haven't been used to."
Both Mammarella and Smith say as more people get vaccinations, they hope the industry will return to normal.
"I'm trying to ride on a high horse of optimism at this point, and I try not to think of what happened in 2020 as much. Trying to keep looking forward. I feel like with this vaccine about to hit, I feel like we're making the right direction," said Mammarella.
"We were told that service industry people are considered front-line and we will be on the second wave of the vaccine. It won't be mandatory, we can't mandate it, but we're going to highly encourage it. I'm planning on getting it as soon as I can," said Smith.