What must a restaurant do if a worker has COVID-19? In NC, it’s mostly up to the owner.
The day before Raleigh restaurant Relish Craft Kitchen and Bourbon Bar planned to reopen its patio to guests last week, an employee tested positive for the coronavirus.
Relish owner Sharon May posted the news on the restaurant’s Facebook page Wednesday, June 10, the day the employee got the result. She decided to keep Relish closed for two weeks, stopping even to-go sales.
All of this is above and beyond what May is required to do.
When North Carolina moved into Phase Two of its coronavirus reopening plan, there were requirements for the distance between tables, the number of people in the dining room and daily symptom screenings for employees. But there was no requirement for what happens when a worker tests positive.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone told us what to do?” May said.
The Relish employee, a kitchen worker, was exposed to the virus outside of the restaurant, May said. The worker and the rest of the restaurant staff were tested for the virus, with only the one employee testing positive on June 10.
At that point, May decided to close the restaurant for two weeks, with plans to resume takeout on June 22.
She said the experience shifted how she thought about the virus and what it means to run a restaurant during the pandemic.
Relish is a popular North Raleigh neighborhood restaurant, but even with loyal regulars May said she’s doing 25% of typical business. Financially, Relish needs to be open, she said.
“I take it to heart,” May said. “This virus, we’re giving it to each other without knowing it. You have to decide what your risk is worth. But having people inside feels scary right now.”
Few others going public
North Carolina is nearly four weeks into Phase Two of its reopening plan, which allowed restaurants to open dining rooms at half capacity, as long as certain social distancing requirements were met.
Guidelines for reopening came from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the NC Restaurant and Lodging Association, recommending detailed sanitation and service procedures.
If an employee tests positive for the virus, the guidelines point to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control, which suggest the worker quarantine for 14 days and notify anyone they spent meaningful contact with for 15 minutes or more. It’s recommended that the restaurant let local health officials know, but North Carolina doesn’t require any formal reporting for positive cases in restaurants. Nor does it require the business to close.
For May and Relish, the decision was a clear but lonely one, she said. Looking around the Triangle, there are few if any other restaurants going public about positive test, though she suspects there are more with cases. In the end, May said she was grateful for her employee’s honesty and hopes Relish’s customers will appreciate the restaurant’s decision.
“Employees need to be encouraged to be honest,” May said. “I believe people will feel safer coming to Relish because we’ve been open with our customers.”
‘We’ve had to make our own decisions’
In a widely shared video from last weekend, WRAL’s Mikaya Thurmond showed Raleigh’s nightlife epicenter Glenwood South looking very much business as usual last Friday night. Restaurants operated as bars, few people were wearing masks, social distancing was non-existent.
May said it’s frustrating to feel like she’s risking the restaurant’s reputation by associating it with the coronavirus, while others appear to be throwing caution to the wind.
“No one asked us about anything,” May said. “We’ve had to make our own decisions.”
Lynn Minges, president and CEO of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, said customers and businesses need to work together if the state hopes to expand its reopening. Reports of crowded bars move things in the wrong direction, she said.
North Carolina closed its dining rooms and bars on March 17. Like many restaurants, Relish closed a few days before that. In those early days of reckoning with the coronavirus and its consequences, May said a cough could cause a spike of anxiety.
“That last weekend before we closed, if someone coughed in the dining room you didn’t want to wait on them,” May said.
Minges said patrons need to do their part.
“Consumers have an important role to play in doing the kinds of things we need to do, social distancing, wearing face coverings. We don’t want to see the spread continue,” she said. “It would be devastating if businesses have to shut down again. I hope we don’t have to step back. We have to continue to live our lives with some modifications.”
When North Carolina moved into Phase Two and opened up restaurants at half capacity, it rolled out a coronavirus training program for restaurants called “Count On Me NC.”
Minges said the course has been downloaded 40,000 times. Some restaurants are taking the training together, she said, but the number is still a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of restaurant workers in North Carolina.
“Not all restaurants have taken the training,” Minges said, noting that many restaurants have yet to reopen. “We continue to push for restaurants to take the course. This is going to take all of us working together.”
Though restaurants aren’t required to report positive cases, Centers for Disease Control guidelines encourage them to notify local health departments.
‘A higher risk activity’
In a press briefing Monday, secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Mandy Cohen, said restaurants are encouraged to be “proactive” about reporting cases, but acknowledged there’s no obligation.
“Restaurants, we always knew it was a higher risk activity,” Cohen said, noting that sitting indoors, without a face covering, for longer periods of time, could make someone more susceptible to contracting the virus. “Those are risky situations, and we’re concerned about them.”
“Our trends are going in the wrong direction, but our fates are not sealed,” Cohen said, in encouraging better social distancing and mask wearing practices.
When Relish opens up for diners, May said it will be counter service, where customers order at a register and then sit outside on the patio to wait for their food. Meals will still come in takeout boxes, so everything’s disposable, May said, and the dining room will likely stay empty for months.
“I’m pretty sure we’ll stay outside only until the weather gets too bad,” May said. “And by bad I mean it gets too cold.”
