MA Taprooms re-opening - Phase 2 or 3?

Well those numbers do speak volumes. I didn’t know the per capita death rate in RI was that much lower.

 

Lost in all the news today was Baker signing an executive order - and bars, brewery taprooms, and beer gardens are not phase 2 or 3...but phase 4. Meaning almost definitely not until there's a vaccine - unless they also happen to serve food, which magically makes them way safer apparently?
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/coro...enings-professional-sports-practices/2134807/

(Full EO is found here: https://www.mass.gov/doc/reopening-phase-ii-executive-order/download which specifically designates breweries, wineries, and distilleries not serving food)

Would expect to see some serious pushback on this (in terms of at least having the chance to convert to a table-service or limited-capacity model), because it's going to put a lot of breweries out of business otherwise.

 

Oh Jesus—phase FOUR? Wow.

 

Would Tree House taproom be phase 4, or does the fact that they have food trucks make them sometime sooner?

 

On the one hand, I can understand some extra caution because drinking establishments are inevitably going to be more prone to people getting a bit loose with their carefulness.

On the other hand, beer gardens are grouped with steam rooms, saunas and dance clubs?

And those Phase 3 casino gaming floors better not included alcohol if they want to show any degree of consistency whatsoever.

 

By letter of the law, I'm guessing 4. My thought is it's the idea of non-assigned seating (ie. patrons coming up to the bar to order their beers/flights) that is the differentiating factor. But I don't see any way it's logical not to allow bars/breweries to retool to a table-service model with social distancing - and, again, there's no way those businesses aren't writing angry emails to the Governor's office as we speak. No way this stands as-is when even states adjacent to us are finding ways to make it work.

 

Million dollar question that I haven’t seen answered or addressed. What happens if the food truck doesn’t show up (happens all the time at breweries)? What about a place like Night Shift that owns its own food truck? Is that considered an in-house kitchen? Silvaticus bakes pretzels in house, is that enough? On paper, you can have a giant space like Night Shift’s taproom closed while some 6 table tapas bar in the south end is open. A lot of questions still.

 

Isn't that the point?

 

I still imagine that due to this...

“Outdoor dining will be allowed at the start of the reopening plan's second phase, with indoor dining to follow later in the stage as dictated by public health data. Establishments will be required to conduct regular cleaning, screen employees for COVID-19 cases, and keep customer parties six feet apart.”

...many breweries will be allowed to pivot and be considered restaurants if they serve food. And just like they pivoted to do curbside, they’ll figure this out too.

That’s my hope anyways.

 

It shouldn’t be. Night Shift and it’s ilk can distance a whole lot better, with some planning, than most restaurants.

 

Oh. I get it now.

 

But an outdoor beer garden at half capacity is way lower risk than a makeshift patio on a sidewalk. The decisions should be based on ability to space not presence of kitchens.

 

This is the part that makes no sense to me. If a brewery taproom is prepared to offer table service that follows all of the distancing guidelines, why does it matter if they serve food?
I thought I read somewhere here that MA was pulling a regulation that required consumers seated outside to order food if they wanted to be served alcohol. If that was just for restaurants and not breweries, that is a total slap in the face.

 

Everyone was laughing at the Julius inspired pizza oven, but not anymore.

 

I thought about this more, and I think it depends on the place.

Tree House is out in the boonies, but if their tap room is open, let's face it, people are going to line up and crowd the place. Especially if they were allowed to open, and somewhere like Nightshift in Boston wasn't.

Where do you think all the people will flock to...

Perhaps the thinking here was that it was simply easier to have one rule for MA, rather than create a multitude of exceptions to the rule.

 

And I was mad about RI taproom patios being delayed a few weeks behind outdoor seating at restaurants (the equity of it not that I am visiting right away), but at least they are now able to do so with spacing restrictions. Restaurants just moved to 50% indoor capacity as of yesterday, with bars able to be used with seated not standing patrons if there is a divider between the workers and patrons or it is a secondary "non-working" bar i.e. no drinks are actually prepared there.

A lot of my favorite restaurants are saying they are not immediately making indoor dining available immediately, which is a responsible move if they are nervous about health and safety for their employees and the public. Also many taprooms are not implementing the outdoor seating right away due to the expense of staff/sanitization for the minimal return of selling pints to only several tables unless you have a huge patio space. Still more profitable to do only packaged pickup right now.

But reading the above I agree that by all accounts, putting taproom reopening in Phase 4 described as the vaccine/treatment phase is NOT GOOD for the survival of MA breweries.

 

It just feels like it was written by someone who assumed all brewery taprooms and beer gardens are packed, standing room only affairs (which is a fair thing if someone's only seen, say, Trillium Greenway at 5 pm on a summer evening).

I'm hoping the big guns like Tree House are able to demonstrate otherwise, even if it means having to do table service at these places for a while (it'd certainly create some jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist) or at least devising a new system of getting beers at the bar.

I'm also cautiously hopeful, based on the lack of expected case spikes from previous nice weekends, that a similar outcome (knock on wood) from the protests/MDW become further proof that outdoor activity is safer than we thought. While the phases by design have to be at least 3 weeks apart, it does also say the contents of each phase are subject to amendment.

 

The Guild in RI was using Eventbrite for tables last I checked. Book one for a party of up to 5 for like 90 time slots. Knowing the general demeanor of the Treehouse hazebois, you'd see flat brimmed guys from CT booking tables at midnight and selling off the seats, but it's at least something to try.

 

Other states that opened up before MA have experienced single day spikes, and in some cases some rivaling what they saw at their peaks.

This is part of why I'm not particularly too bummed out about this. Because in my opinion it's going to be very hard to move past Phase 2, and even remain in Phase 2, by the end of the summer. Nothing's changed since March that would dictate otherwise. And if cases haven't dramatically dropped by then, the flu season is right around the corner. Coupling COVID-19 with the flu season is the nightmare scenario.

Maybe more sparsely populated areas will have better outcomes if they're conservative enough, but at the very least, MA isn't going to blow through these phases until we at least see a dramatic uptick in testing to perform aggressive contact tracing.

Germany for example, who has far less cases and had the virus before us, just started opening restaurants less than two weeks ago. They only opened up churches on May 4th, only to pull back after an outbreak.


And here's the biggest issue...we don't exactly follow rules here in the US very well. And the states aren't exactly strictly enforcing them either. Couple that with people getting drunk...