To slow the spread of coronavirus, Summit County leaders have declared a local state of emergency and issued a public health order to close all restaurants and bars in the county. This took effect Sunday at 5 PM.
The Summit County Health Department Director Rich Bullough ordered restaurants and all other businesses where people gather, closed. Until further notice, restaurants can only provide take-out services. It’s designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent overwhelming the county’s healthcare services.
Park City Restaurant Association Executive Director Ginger Reiss explains that those establishments which want to provide a curb-s ide, take-out food service can work through the county to obtain authorization. She says many restaurants already do a substantial take-out business so it’s not going to be difficult to put in place. For others she says they have until Tuesday at 5 P.M. to comply with county requirements which is to alert them they intend to do a take-out food service.
“You know, they just kind of have to think about do I have containers to put the food in and is my menu online and getting those things up so that consumers know what they're offering. So, they have 40 hours to comply, by tomorrow if they're going to do it. They have to have all their I’s dotted and their Tee’s crossed so I think today they'll be sorting through that and I hope more will come on board.”
The county directive requires orders are paid by a charge card over the phone. Cash transactions are only allowed if a restaurant follows strict guidelines that separate money handling from food handling. Cleansing measures are required in between each transaction. Reiss says the county is requiring that tipping be done during the phone transaction and not with cash.
“I would imagine they’re going to be asking you what sort of tip you want to include and I encourage residents to obviously not take offense to that and understand that all that needs to happen at the time the order is placed over the phone. Because again, they're trying very hard to eliminate the exchange of cash and the exchange of using credit cards.”
Reiss says some of the restaurants in town plan to use gift card revenues to help their employees.
“The owners of No-Name and Butchers and Boneyard and the Wine Dive, they put out an announcement yesterday that 100% of the proceeds from any gift cards purchased will go to support employees during this time and so the restaurants are certainly concerned about their employees.”
Reiss hopes to keep the local business owners informed about resources to help get through this emergency.
“I think as we go through the next few days, the reality of it all, the concerns are probably going to trickle to the top a little bit more, so we'll be working through those issues and trying to support our businesses with getting them the correct information on loans and support coming out of the county and the city and national government support.”
