Local restaurants react to loosened indoor dining restrictions – WGEM

QUINCY (WGEM) -- Tuesday marked the first day of indoor dining for restaurants across West Central Illinois.

This comes after the state announced Region 3, which includes Adams, Brown, Hancock, Pike, Schuyler, and Scott counties will move out of Resurgence Mitigations toPhase 4of the Restore Illinois Plan late Monday evening.

This allows bars, restaurants, and theaters to reopen with capacity limits. It also allows for gatherings of 50 people.

Local establishments said it's a day they've been waiting months for.

Dunnbelly owner Brad Dunn said he got chills when he seated his first customer.

"It's amazing," he said. "We've been waiting for this for a very long time."

Dunn said they're cutting no corners when it come to safety, requiring masks when people aren't at their table, ramping up cleaning and more.

"We've been doing extra sanitizing in the dining room, rearranging tables and stuff," he said. "Obviously with restrictions in terms of space we have to have 25 percent capacity so our seating is about the same."

Staff said a reopened dining room will be good for their bottom line.

Kitchen manager Leslie Fonza said they did see a dip in business when the dining room closed.

"I don't think a whole lot of people like to sit outside," he said.

But he said that should change.

"With it being open now, business is starting to pick up," Fonza said.

Dunn said with things starting to return to normal it's crucial people do what they can to keep things that way.

"Let's enjoy indoor dining and hopefully you know, onwards and upwards with the vaccine and everything," he said. "There's light at the end of the tunnel and this is proof of that."

Region 5 in southern Illinois will also move out of Resurgence Mitigations to Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois Plan.

IDPH officials added that Regions 8, 9, 10, and 11 will move from the most restrictive Tier 3 to Tier 2. In addition, Region 1 and 6 have met the metrics to move to Tier .

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Local restaurants react to loosened indoor dining restrictions - WGEM