Keep your vaccine card handy. These Triangle restaurants require it for indoor diners
June and July were the promised land for Yonder Bar in Hillsborough, owner Eryk Pruitt said.
After a lost summer in 2020, months where the bar was either closed or heavily restricted, sales doubled this June and July as COVID-19 case counts dropped, vaccinations increased and live music returned to the bar.
And Pruitt said he doesn’t want to give that up. So Yonder Bar has joined a growing number of local bars and restaurants requiring vaccines for people stepping foot indoors.
“I felt like we need to do what we could to get a stronger push out there (for vaccines),” Pruitt said. “I had enough conversations with people who refused to get the vaccine for whatever reason, it didn’t seem like there were enough incentives out there for them.”
The list of Triangle bars and restaurants requiring vaccines for diners has added a number of popular names this week, largely in downtown Durham.
They include Durham beer bar Hunky Dory, cocktail bar Kingfisher, French restaurant Rue Cler, Pizzeria Mercato in Carrboro, Players Retreat in Raleigh, plus Yonder Bar in Hillsborough. The Durham music venue Motorco also added a vaccine requirement for upcoming shows.
Kingfisher announced Tuesday that it will begin requiring vaccines for indoor customers on Aug. 17. Owners Michelle Vanderwalker and Sean Umstead said the move is meant to protect staff and customers in the cozy basement bar.
“We felt like it’s time,” Vanderwalker said. “We want our staff and guests to feel comfortable. Even with mask requirements, once you start drinking the mask is coming off.”
Kingfisher added a large outdoor patio and burger bar during the pandemic, which Umstead and Vanderwalker said won’t require vaccines to visit. But indoor guests looking for a cocktail will need to show their vaccine card.
“It’s something we did for our crowd,” Umstead said. “This is the best way to continue to allow people to leave their worries at the door, which is one of the reasons people come to bars.”
In the past few weeks, North Carolina’s COVID numbers have spiked to the highest levels since the late winter. Hospitalizations have quintupled in a month. This week, the City of Durham resumed an indoor mask mandate.
“June and July were this huge party,” Pruitt said. “It made me almost forget about 2020. Then the calendar flipped to August and people became more cautious and case counts increased. For our customers and clientele, we felt like we’d be letting them down if they weren’t able to come inside and relax without worrying about people who weren’t (vaccinated). This is a thing for our customers, we want to reward them.”
Vaccine requirements have been imposed in some cities and countries, including New York and France, as the delta variant leads a new surge in cases, largely among unvaccinated people, according to the New York Times. Pruitt said Yonder Bar had considered an indoor vaccine requirement for weeks before making the move. Now he expects others will follow.
“I was afraid to do it; I thought it was elitist and I thought it was dystopian,” Pruitt said. “But talking to our customers, that’s what changed my mind, they would feel more at ease and relaxed enough to party. I’m hoping this is the norm.”
‘We need our leaders to lead’
Pruitt, who was a vocal critic of the months-long shutdown of North Carolina’s bars, hopes a government vaccine mandate won’t be necessary. But some restaurant owners think they need the backing of the state and city.
COPA owners Elizabeth Turnbull and Roberto Matos support a vaccine requirement, but won’t mandate one at their Durham restaurant.
“I’m strongly in favor of this policy and places that have decided to do it — I think it’s a really good thing,” Turnbull said. “But we need our leaders to lead. Unless this comes from a citywide order, the chance of it being really effective isn’t as good. Instead small businesses shoulder all the risk and potential criticism, without much to gain in a sense of public safety.”
The first Triangle restaurant to impose an indoor vaccine requirement was Alpha Dawgs in Raleigh. Recently owner Hisine McNeil closed the restaurant and transitioned the business into a food truck. He said independent restaurants are on their own to enforce public safety measures, and on the hook for losses when efforts fail.
“As we look around the nation, businesses are adopting the same thing I set the tone for,” McNeil said. “It’s a Catch-22 for someone like me. I’m not a big corporation, I’m a small mom and pop. If we have to close down due to COVID, there’s no financial backing from the government for that. I’m stuck with it.”
Avoiding a shutdown
Should North Carolina order a second major shutdown, restaurant owners said it would further cripple a still-reeling industry.
“It would be devastating,” Turnbull said. “We’re still operating at a loss, just a smaller loss than we had been. ... If we had to go back to 50 percent capacity, we wouldn’t survive.”
Alley Twenty Six reopened its indoor bar in Durham this summer after only offering outdoor and takeout service for most of the past year. Owner Shannon Healy expects to introduce a vaccine requirement this month as a way to keep the indoor space open.
“I think a lot of people missed going into a bar and sitting at the bar,” Healy said. “My alley isn’t covered in any way. The littlest sprinkle means you’re in the rain. (Indoor service) just really helped a lot, especially during the heat of the summer. ... There’s no way to just be open outside, sometimes, whenever the weather feels like it.”
Healy doesn’t believe Alley Twenty Six’s eventual vaccine requirement alone will cut into Durham’s rising case count, but that it is meant as a step to protect those in his bar.
“One business requiring vaccines is going to do nothing to change the percentages on a city-wide level,” Healy said. “The only thing we can do is affect the comfort level of folks in our establishment. Anyone who’s worried about the economy and hasn’t been vaccinated, COVID is the economy.”
Triangle restaurants and bars with indoor vaccine requirements
▪ Hunky Dory
718 Ninth St., Durham.
▪ Kingfisher
321 E. Chapel Hill St., Durham
▪ Pizzeria Mercato
408 W. Weaver St., Carrboro
▪ Players Retreat
105 Oberlin Road, Raleigh
▪ Rue Cler
401 E. Chapel Hill St., Durham.
▪ Yonder Bar
114 W. King St., Hillsborough
This story was originally published August 11, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
