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New York business owner on how restrictions impact restaurant reopenings

2020-07-19 | 🔗
Stephen Elkins, owner of Forest Hills Station House in New York, joins ‘Fox & Friends Weekend.’
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jedediah New York City entering phase four of reopening tomorrow, but Governor Andrew Cuomo is still delaying the return of indoor dining. This comes a day after he imposed new restrictions on bars and restaurants requiring food to be sold with alcohol over concern. People are packing sidewalks for a drank and ignoring social distancing guidelines. So how will this impact the already hurt restaurant industries century lets? Ask Steven Elkins owner lets. Ask Steven Elkins Owner Stationhouse Steven welcome to the show so glad to have you here when you hear these restrictions that keep coming in from Andrew Cuomo? What do you think youre a business owner? You rely on the survival of your business, for your income to feed your family, its been extremely challenging theres. No doubt the guidelines keep changing daily,
its been somewhat frustrating. You know the whole three strike rule. You know they should just keep that with baseball. You know we are doing the best we can to be compliant with all of our guests. We definitely have to be involved in a lot of plussing people, which is just an extra strain on us trying to operate the business. We have you know, outdoor seating, that needs to be set up breaking down every single day. It takes a good hour of breakdown hour of setup, its hot out, and we have to sit there and monitor people. We have to explain the rules to. We have to explain the rules to takeout order or its coming to takeout order or its coming to dine with us, so people just want to come in and have a beer, and I think they should be allowed to, and you know the majority of
our customers do want to eat and drink at the same time, but theres twenty percent of the business, at least that want to just come and have a drink, and we are practicing social were doing. Everything were supposed to be doing its just, not really a sustainable business. You know Jedediah the latest indication from Cuomo is that im sorry, Jedediah yeah indication from Governor Cuomo is that indoor dining would not be able to be done safely. Do you find that to be true, or is he wrong? I think that we would be able to do it safely. I think that we have doors that stay wide open, as we follow the same setup that we have outside. We make sure everyone wears a mask when they come in when theyre seated at a table. I dont have to all my staff is
practicing practicing the correct sanitation practices to make sure that we keep everything clean and sanitized. It would be helpful to have the inside as well as the outside. Like I said, my biggest concern as a business owner is come September October November, especially you know they have given us til October and they basically said that til October 31st. I think we can keep this outdoor seating but, like I said its helpful, but its really, not the answer. You cant turn over tables fast enough. You could only seat, maybe you Jedediah yeah, its Jedediah yeah Steven youre, not really maximizing anything and its a little scary to see what the future Jedediah yep dont want to interrupt. You were running out of time, whats that Jedediah dont want to interrupt. You
were running out of time here.
Transcript generated on 2020-07-21.