What You Need to Know About the Coronavirus and America’s Restaurants

Prominent local chef-restaurateur Tom Douglas, who operates 13 restaurants and associated businesses in the city under the Seattle Kitchen umbrella, closed a dozen of them on Sunday before the state restricted all Washington restaurants to takeout and delivery service only. Douglas directed laid-off employees to file for unemployment and said that while he couldn’t afford to pay them severance, he would rehire them when his establishments reopened.

Danny Meyer’s restaurant organization issued a statement last week reading, “We have made the difficult decision to temporarily close for service to prioritize the health and safety of our team, our guests, and our community.” All 21 USHG restaurants and bars were affected, including such acclaimed restaurants as Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern, and Blue Smoke. Though the newly announced state ban on in-house service permits takeout and delivery, the USHG restaurants are not currently offering either.

This Atlanta-based fast-food chain has retrained its staff on sanitation measures, added public sanitizer stations to all dining rooms, and has assigned one employee at each unit to do nothing but keep the restaurants as clean as possible. “That’s all they do,” company president Gordon Muir told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Start at the front door and continue around the whole building and wiping doors, tables, napkin holders on the table. That’s all this person does all day long.”