Harris Co. restaurant defiantly reopens during stay-at-home order
HARRIS COUNTY - One restaurant owner in Harris County has decided to go against the stay at home order by offering dine-in service and has a lot of support from the community and local officials.
For six weeks the Federal American Grill closed their dining room to comply with county orders, only offering curbside service and delivery. Now they are one of the first restaurants fully open for business against county orders.
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“How can you tell me that Walgreens is any safer than coming to federal grill when I have all these stipulations in place," says Matt Brice, owner of Federal American Grill.
He tells FOX 26 that after meeting with the Mayor of Hedwig Village and other officials, they came up with a plan to safely re-open his restaurant.
Temperatures will be taken of every employee at the beginning of their shift, and all are required to wear masks and gloves. We’re told things like menus and condiments will be replaced with one-time use items to be disposed.
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They will only be seating 30 percent of the restaurant's capacity in order to keep parties apart, that’s just a few of the many stipulations in place.
Renee Davis was on her way to eat inside. She said “I am not concerned. I have considered the risk. They have made a decision that requires social distancing in the restaurant. The people that work here are wearing masks.“
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Brice is receiving lots of support. Local restaurants wishing they were in the position to do the same. I would love to go down and present a plan to Mayor Sylvester Turner, and sit down and have a cup of coffee with him and say How can we get the restaurants back open again and get my single moms back to work? But at this point they’ve got so much on their plate I can’t get in front of him.“ says Edd Hendee, the owner of Taste of Texas.
Local officials see how Brice is leading by example and wanting their own restaurants to follow suit.
Jim Pappas is the Mayor of Hunters Creek Village. He tells Fox 26 that he spoke with restaurants in his area and said “I told them as long as you do safe distancing, proper social distancing, the proper procedures that we’ve established here that he has established here, OK, why not?”