While many Saskatoon restaurants open their dining rooms, others take a slower approach

As Tina Remlinger and her friend sat down in their favourite booth at Saskatoon’s Pink Cadillacs Malt Shop and Diner, and listened to “Rock Around the Clock” by Jerry Lee Lewis, she said it was wonderful to finally enjoy the experience.

The two were the first dining room customers in the restaurant in three months and she’d  been craving the “Earth Angel” chicken sandwich.

“Staff  were very welcoming,” said Remlinger.”They’re doing great with their cleaning and how they’re working the whole situation. Just the socialization of being (able) to go anywhere has kind of been missed.”

Supervisor Cheyanne McRae was relieved to be back at work, as she wrote the specials on the chalkboard at the front door.

“It’ll be nice to interact with people again, and not just kind of pass by with the take-out. We hope it’s busy.”

Tables where customers were not allowed to sit to maintain physical distancing were marked, a bottle of hand sanitizer sat on the front host desk, and all staff wore cloth masks.

“It’s a big deal to finally be able to open again,” she explained.”We weren’t sure with COVID going on. Some businesses unfortunately went under, and so we have a very loyal customer base and lots of families were very excited to come back – especially when we opened back up for take out…but it’ll be nice to have customers back in, interact, see people smiling and kids laughing again.”

But not all restaurants are welcoming guests right away. At Ayden Kitchen and Bar in Saskatoon, part owner and chef Dale Mackay says there has been a lot for his staff and management to consider and prepare, before customers come back.

“At first we weren’t planning on opening even for a couple of weeks, but then when the government kind of extended the wage subsidy program, then we decided to jump in the first week or two, only because opening with 50 per cent occupancy without that wage subsidy basically just equals losing a ton of money.”

So, the plan now is to open each of the four Grassroots Group restaurants one by one. Sticks and Stones is expected to open Wednesday (June 10). Then every four to five days another will open its doors. Mackay says reopening a restaurant is almost like relaunching the entire business all over again.

“You’re having to bring in staff three to four days before hand, you need to obviously clean down, then you need to prep everything, then you need to sanitize everything. You go through the whole health board thing again. It’s a big process.”

To start, the menus will be reduced by about 30 per cent, in part so that there’s less waste, and also to kind of “reset,” and provide the best food they can.

Bottom line though – it’s all going to come down to the people’s comfort levels, he says.

“Comforting for us is that we’re already getting a lot of reservations for most of the restaurants already. So there definitely is some people wanting to come back – who are ready to come back.”