MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Longer operating times and more diners at one table are some of the loosened restrictions restaurants and bars can look forward to starting this weekend.
It all means more freedom for dining establishments after a hard year financially.
One restaurant manager said it’s good to see Beale Street smiling again after a year of COVID-19 restrictions, stressing one hour of added business goes a long way in sales.
“It was a little abysmal a little scary when you look down Beale and it’s so empty especially on Friday nights and stuff,” said Jock Marx, the regional manager of Tin Roof. “So now to see all the people coming back to Beale and enjoying it that was great.”
Marx said his business has been operating in the red for months.
“We can finally have profit and the business isn’t operating at losses, like we’ve been doing for so long so it’s been a huge positive impact,” Marx said.
Each added health directive that brings business a little closer to normal is a relief for bars, especially the ones downtown that thrive on nightlife.
“We’ve doubled our sales since the last directive it literally has doubled our sales,” said the manager. “So it only looks like an hour on paper but that hour is huge and this next hour will be even bigger.”
Health directive 19 includes increases in the number of people at tables to 8 instead of 6.
Operating hours for dine-in service ends at 1 a.m., and a two-hour limit for food service is removed.
Memphis tourism president Kevin Kane shared he’s optimistic the new health directive will boost business.
“We had 12 million visitors that came here from all over the world in 2019 over 12 million that dropped to 5.4 million in 2020,” said Kane. “So we dropped by more than half.”
Kane believes Memphis is starting to head back in the positive direction when it come to tourism.
“It’s going to be the roaring twenties in travel and tourism the latter part of this decade staring the latter part of this year,” said Kane.
Health directive 19 goes into effect on Saturday.