Ready to dine in ‘uncharted territory’? Some Boise restaurants to open, others ‘no way’

Like many Idaho restaurateurs, Dave Krick faces a coronavirus conundrum.

As a downtown Boise business owner, he should be doing cartwheels about May 16. That’s when Gov. Brad Little’s statewide ban on restaurant dining rooms is set to be lifted, and Krick can roll out the red carpet.

Just one problem. Krick, who owns Bittercreek Alehouse, Diablo & Sons and Red Feather Lounge, has reservations.

And they’re not the dining kind.

“The truth is, I’m not ready to go out and eat in a restaurant,” Krick said earlier this week. “And so will our guests be ready to come and eat in a restaurant, when I myself am not ready to go out and eat in a restaurant?”

Opening Boise dining establishments this soon, Krick said, “feels rushed.”

Ready or not, Treasure Valley, here it comes. But not all at once. Though many eateries plan to open their doors as soon as they can, others will take a wait, see and learn approach as they usher in a strange new world.

Restaurant employees will wear masks and gloves. Tables will be taped off or spaced by 6 or more feet. Hosts will meticulously guide patrons to seats and monitor group sizes. Some restaurants that did not previously offer reservations will accept them.

They all just have to decide when.

The earliest that Bittercreek and Diablo & Sons might open to seated dining is June 1, Krick said. He’s planning on reviving Red Feather last. Initially, it probably will be used for Bittercreek overflow seating, he said, as needed for additional social distancing.

Other 8th Street restaurants have different plans. The Funky Taco plans to open for dining May 16. Prost is targeting the same, tentatively. Chain restaurants Eureka and The Matador might return later in May but are still working out details.

Patios will be highlighted at restaurants this spring, owners agreed. They expect Boiseans to feel safer outdoors.

But there’s one caveat to all these plans. Reopening dates — and most other details — are subject to change. The variables and question marks feel endless. “We’re in uncharted territory,” Krick said.

“For people in the restaurant industry, we need to get open, because economically, it’s going to be brutal if we don’t get open soon,” he said. “It already is brutal. With that said, what we don’t want to do is play whack-a-mole, and we don’t want our people to get sick.

“… The fact is, we can’t afford to do this wrong. I think a lot of us in the restaurant and the bar industry are lacking what are some of the best ideas out there on how to do this. We’re getting very little information outside of kind of standard stuff.”

Masks, ‘Walmart greeters’

Boiseans going out to eat will encounter an alternate universe.

Bar stool seating will be closed at many places, keeping bartenders away from customers. Other restaurants might try to allow it but keep parties well-spaced. Menus will be disposable, or sanitizable, and often viewable online.

The number of patrons allowed will be slashed by half or more, usually. Where once there was a joyous din, an awkward quietness could hang in spaces — save, perhaps, for the wooshing sound of sanitizing, which will occur seemingly nonstop.

“Wipe, wipe, wipe, wipe,” said Kasey Allen, co-owner of The STIL ice cream shops in Boise. “There’s the article headline right there.”

To prevent customers from having to enter the past few weeks, The STIL has served takeout treats through garage-door windows at its downtown and Harris Ranch stores. Both are slated to allow customers to dine on-site starting May 16. Because the downtown location is relatively small, Allen guesses there might be a total of two or three tables available — indoors and outdoors combined. Many details about daily operations, including staff size, are still unfolding.

“I need to dive into it a little bit more,” he said. “Right now, we’re just kind of making a list of scenarios. So much of it is dependent on how busy we even end up being. How comfortable the public is even going to feel to come out and patronize these businesses — ourselves and others.”

If crowds do materialize, The STIL plans to station an employee on the patio to take orders in a separate outdoor line. That job will include reminding customers about social distancing protocols.

“Like our very own Walmart greeter,” Allen said, “but out on the patio at The STIL.”

Unless, of course, that doesn’t work very well.

“That’s the name of the game,” Allen said. “Try something out and iterate and find a path forward to keep serving customers. It’s wild. The last six weeks have just been adapting and trying things.”

Outdoor dining creativity

The Modern Hotel & Bar on Grove Street plans to get creative, owner Elizabeth Tullis said.

She doesn’t plan to open the restaurant — now doing takeout and delivery — for dine-in service until June 1: “I just feel better about it,” she said. Same for downtown wine bar Txikiteo, her other business, although it will launch takeout and delivery May 16.

Both restaurants have attractive outdoor patios, which will be utilized. And The Modern will feature a new outdoor space being constructed in the parking lot.

“No one wants to crowd into a bar or restaurant,” Tullis explained. “They would rather have really good food in someone’s backyard. So we’re building a backyard in our front yard. … We’re just using the parking lot for extra outdoor space for seating.”

Musicians will perform from the second-floor balconies of hotel rooms, she said, which are not being used. The setup might remind Boiseans of past events at the site — Modern Art, Burning Lamb or Treefort Music Fest.

“We’ll see what we can do with it,” she added. “We like fun.”

Having socially distanced outdoor dining just feels right in Idaho. At Bardenay in Eagle, customers often prefer to wait for a seat on the popular patio rather than take an available table indoors, owner Kevin Settles said.

During the pandemic? “I think they’re going to be even more driven that way,” he said.

Settles is targeting a May 16 opening for seated dining — indoors and out — at Bardenay in Eagle and Boise, and at Coyne’s restaurant in Eagle.

“We think we can do it safely,” he said. “We’ve got a staff that wants to work. We’ve been doing to-go business. We have fairly large spaces, we can space them out. So that’s our take on it. If things change, we definitely will not proceed.”

Settles thinks his restaurants will hold only about one-third of normal capacity. But he still hopes to open — assuming Idahoans want to go out and eat.

“It’s the big unknown,” he said.

Restaurants as enforcers

Local health departments have issued guidelines for restaurants, but they’re not required to submit a written plan as part of reopening, according to Boise-based Central District Health, which covers Ada County.

Consequently, it’s up to restaurants to monitor and enforce the safety of their employees and guests.

“I thought at first the health department was going to have some sort of program where they were going to check us off,” Bittercreek’s Krick said, “and we were going to have to be certified in some way. That’s not the case. It’s all optional. We don’t have to do anything. We can do whatever we want.”

“They’re not enforcing anything,” said Andrew Hanebutt, marketing director at Boise Fry Co.

Boise Fry Co., which has six Treasure Valley locations, recently pivoted to online ordering only, for curbside takeout and delivery. Customers haven’t been allowed inside the restaurants in over a month, Hanebutt said.

The local chain might expand service to include walk-up orders at the door starting May 16. But allowing dine-in customers?

“No. No way,” he said. “It’s just too early. We just want to feel it out for a few more weeks.”

“I’m so uncomfortable with the idea of people coming in restaurants,” Hanebutt admitted. “… Even today — I’m at my Bown Crossing location — I’ve had people literally trying to push their way into my restaurant. I had to raise my voice … “Follow code and procedure!” They’re just looking at me like a deer in headlights: ‘Well, well, why?’ ”

“Sun’s out,” Hanebutt added. “Stay-at-home order’s lifted. People are antsy to get out, I understand. But people still need to do their due diligence to protect themselves, and we’re doing our due diligence to protect ourselves.”

Boise Fry Co. is considering opening its lobby to special-needs customers and their guests in early June, Hanebutt said. That could be followed with all customers in late June, but with restricted capacities, he said.

“We want to be open,” Hanebutt said. “Don’t get me wrong.”

Policing customers isn’t something that restaurants are built to do or comfortable doing, owners said. But it will be required, Bittercreek’s Krick said, partly because the federal government has not taken a strong lead.

And restaurants can do only so much.

“I’ve heard stories of places in other parts of the country that are wanting to take temperatures of their guests and give them a quiz before they come in,” Krick said. “Well, that’d be great if it was mandated from above, but we’re not going to do that on our own. We’re in the hospitality business. That’s the opposite of hospitality.”

Controlling social distancing will be a constant challenge. And that’s not even considering how alcohol sometimes affects customer judgment.

The state’s reopening guidelines suggest that restaurants consider limiting tables to groups of six.

“Our bread and butter is big groups,” Bardenay’s Settles said. “... Well, what if you have a family of eight that walks in? There’s a lot to be decided between now and then.”

FINDING A WAY FORWARD

Chad Johnson owns downtown restaurants Reef, The Front Door and The Brickyard, plus Legends Sports Pub & Grill at the Boise Spectrum and Brixx Craft House on State Street.

Some of those restaurants plan to begin offering seated dining May 16 using limited schedules.

“We are going to open a few of our restaurants and begin very, very slowly,” he said. “… And we’re really hoping to utilize patio space.”

Johnson heads a COVID-19 committee for independent food-business group FARE Idaho, which includes restaurants such as Bittercreek Alehouse.

Johnson’s committee goal is to create a handbook for Idaho restaurateurs on how to operate during the pandemic. He, Krick and other owners have been examining a “COVID-19 Playbook” shared by Black Sheep Restaurants in Hong Kong, where dining already has resumed.

As restaurants in other parts of the world — and in states such as Texas and Georgia — serve customers, Idaho restaurant owners hope to glean helpful information, they said.

“We’re opening blind without a lot of experience in how to do this and how to do it well,” Bittercreek’s Krick said. “… The first sick person and we’re shut down again.”

Johnson described current guidelines as “a little nebulous.”

“The challenge that we face as an industry is that liability piece of it,” Johnson said. “How culpable will we be if somebody gets sick? Or if a staff member happens to contract this and subject other people to getting it?

“We, as restaurateurs, are faced with an insurmountable challenge. Literally, not just figuratively — with the business, the industry that we’re in, and the paradigm of shifting what we do and how we do it to accommodate the risk and liability side of this virus.”

Some Idaho restaurants will take temperatures of employees, have them get tested and require them to fill out health questionnaires. In a perfect world, employee testing would occur daily. “But that’s not realistic,” Johnson said.

It’s also impossible to expect all precautions to be taken diligently at all restaurants, Johnson said. Many Idahoans, probably including a few restaurant owners, think this “is all hogwash.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “that puts a lot of us very conscientious operators at risk.”

“Every day,” Johnson said, “I lose sleep in the bar and restaurant business already. And now I’m going to even lose more sleep with what I’m potentially going to have to be challenged with every single day, every single minute I’m there.”

Still, he said, restaurants have no choice but to proceed.

“This isn’t going to blow over anytime soon,” Johnson said. “You look at the hard reality that we’re going to be living with this. We have to be prepared to do everything that we have to, to continue to do this. Even on a limited scale and basis.”

State recommendations

Here are just some of the considerations for establishing Stage 2 Protocols for restaurants from the state’s Idaho Rebounds reopening plan.

▪Limit occupancy to 50% of seating capacity or less, if necessary, to maintain 6 feet physical distancing.

▪ Limit tables to groups of six.

▪ Limit employee and patron contact by using a reservation or call-ahead model and using contactless payment methods when possible.

▪ Dedicate certain staff members to disinfection of high-contact surfaces throughout the establishment and disinfection of tables between parties.

▪ Refrain from using preset tableware.

▪ Require all employees in contact with patrons to wear cloth face coverings and gloves during their shift, and change them after touching patron items.

▪ Recommend all employees in the dishwashing room to wear face shields in addition to face coverings and gloves.

▪ Monitor employee health by screening employees for fever and symptoms before every shift.

▪ Direct the flow of traffic in the restaurant to maximize space between people (e.g., lines).

This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 11:24 AM.