By Sarah Butkovic
Although Dominican has been offering indoor dining since the beginning of the semester, Chicago’s recent scaleback to Phase 4 of reopening is allowing indoor dining for the first time since the summer.
As of Monday, February 1, restaurants in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs can serve customers at 25% capacity or 25 people per room. Bars can also reopen long as they offer food and socially-distant seating.
According to Chicago’s official Twitter account, eating establishments can now sit a maximum of six people per table but must stop selling alcohol at 11 p.m. and close their doors at midnight.
This rollback affects not only businesses but their workers as well. Many students and young people work in the fast food or restaurant industry as a way to pay for their education or earn an income while getting their degrees. They will be in for a culture shock now that indoor dining is back in business.
Dominican senior Kenneth Claypool recently returned to his job as a server after strictly handling to-go orders at Chick-fil-A since December.
“It’s weird seeing people sitting down without their masks,” Claypool said. “I’m so used to bringing people their pick-up orders and only interacting with them for a few seconds. Now I have to stand around and tend to them. It makes me feel like I have a bigger responsibility to keep the customers and myself safe.”
sbutkovic@my.dom.edu
Image from Chicago Tribune
