DETROIT – Restaurants and bars across the state of Michigan finally got the green light to reopen this week, but one popular business in Detroit still hasn’t opened its doors.
When Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer lifted the stay-at-home order last week, it opened the door for restaurants and bars to resume business Monday at 50% capacity, as long as servers wear masks and groups of customers maintain at least six feet of distance.
Many residents were excited to be served, but for some businesses, it wasn’t an easy decision. Certain restaurant owners decided staying closed makes more sense for now.
Flood’s Bar and Grille has been a staple in Greektown for 32 years. The restaurant decided to wait to reopen, and it’s losing money every day.
“Well, we have had some challenges in calling our staff back to work,” co-owner Stephanie Byrd said.
“It’s scary, you know, coming home from work or coming in from interacting with the public,” bartender and manager Kyle Perry said.
Byrd said she’s trying to come up with ways to keep people apart from each other.
“We will have a host, which is something new for us, because we want to make sure everyone is safe, they get checked in,” Byrd said.
Aside from the risks of working, Byrd said when they reopen some bartenders and servers might make less money than they do right now.
“Initially, I believe we may,” Byrd said. “But I’m pretty confident that we’ll bounce back through it fairly quickly. I’m pretty sure that some of them are making more not working, but we’ll see. We’ll see how things go. I think things will change over the course of the next few weeks. I know, at least right now, some of that unemployment is scheduled to end at the end of July. That’s quickly approaching."
The plan is to eventually reopen, but the business will start with limited hours and days to make sure it has the staff to keep everyone safe.