GALION — Sit-down service at all bars and restaurants in Ohio ended Sunday night.
Galion-area businesses are already seeing a downword trend in customers.
A skeleton staff at Granny’s Kitchen cooked up about four takeout orders Monday morning and owner Terry Crowle said she is just waiting to see how this ban will affect the business in the long run.
“It’s still day one,” she said. “We’re four hours in and it’s been pretty bleak. With only four to-go orders it’s not even enough money to pay the cook. Right now the only people working are me and the cook”
With a staff of about 20, Crowle said she is worried how this ban will hurt those employees and their income.
“This is not good for the employees,” she said. “Right now we’re just doing carryout orders, not delivery because I don’t want to take the chance of getting any of my staff sick. I’m afraid someone not feeling good would call for delivery and I just don’t want to take that chance with my employees.
“We’ll give it a shot (with the carry out), but we’re not going to open until 8 a.m. from now until the ban is over,” she noted. “I hope as the days go on this will get better. If carryout doesn’t pay off, then we’ll probably shut down until the ban is lifted.”
Holly Rose, owner of Birstro 217, said they plan to also offer carryout and they additionally have Door Dash for deliveries.
“A lot of our business is dine-in. This is just the first day so we’re not sure how it’s going to go,” she said. “We are going to be running on a short staff and we’re going to handle it the best we can in this horrible situation. But we’ll push through. Hopefully we’ll come out good at the end of this and get on with life.”
Definitely shook up by the ban is Charolotte Larson, owner of the Whistle stop Cafe and Trackside 30. She said this ban has devastated her.
“It’s hit me both ways because I own a restaurant and a bar,” she said. “It’s not only devastated me, but my employees, too. I have about 12 employees this ban has hit.
“We’re going to try the carryout thing, but there is only a limited amount of money in this town,” Larson said. “We’ll try it for a few days, but we can’t keep paying out what we don’t have. We’ll see what happens. I’m praying for everyone.”
Ralphie’s is also going to try the carryout only routine for a while and see how it plays out.
Kitchen manager Tim Chase said they are only allowed to do carry-out and they will be working with a limited staff and changing the hours they are open.
“We’re going to offer carryout from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and since we can’t serve we’re only going to have one person in the back and one person in the front during lunch time,” he said. “We normally have two in back and two in the front. Now, at night time, that’s really going to hurt our staff. We usually have three in the front, three in the back, a bartender and manager. We’ll be cutting about nine jobs from the night shift.
“We’ll see how the carryout goes,” Chase said. “Yesterday was definitely a rough day … emotionally draining. And with our inventory, we’re just going to have to play that by ear since we don’t know what our sales are going to be with carryout.”
“We’re approaching this with a positive attitude,” said Crystal Ebner, lead barista at the Willow Coffee Shop.
“Right now we’re just a few hours in. We’ve had a lot of our regulars come in this morning for carryout. The majority of our business is carryout, so this ban is not going to affect us as bad as the other restaurants in town. We’re just going to continue on as we can.”
