I’m also starting to see a few “out of utmost concern for the safety of our staff and customers, we’re closing for 2-3 days for testing/deep cleaning” - can’t help but wonder if there’s an exposure behind those, but the fact that they’re not saying so makes me wonder.
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Governor Murphy tweeted this today:
"Over the weekend, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control inspected 104 establishments in Camden, Essex, and Hudson counties.
15 were cited for various executive order violations.
ABC will continue making these checks throughout the week."
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I don’t think you have to wonder. I’d bet they had at least one employee who was sick/tested positive. Hopefully by shutting down they will prevent further spread among the staff.
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Agree; guess my sarcasm didn’t quite come through!
I know I appreciate the places that say up front “a staff member may have been exposed” or “we learned that a customer was sick” so you know exactly what’s going on–not just “we’re deep cleaning!”
And new on that list is Deal Lake Bar + Co; just saw their IG post.
“Hey friends! In an effort to be safe and proactive, we are closing today due to an employee’s recent exposure to COVID. In the meantime we will continue with our daily professional cleaning of the restaurant and add on a CDC-recommended sanitization by our friends @filtashieldnj . Stay tuned for reopening info!”
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The lack of the sarcasm emoji, from the queen of emojis, had me fooled. 
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All hail the Queen!!! 
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sorry for your experience here JR, it’s a no win situation and you shouldn’t have to risk your safety to eat a meal, sadly I’ve had a cpl of these recently myself. I really struggle with this tbh as far as outing spots that are offenders. On one hand I don’t want to kick a place when they are down and during this mess all spots are having a rough go, but at the same time people really do have a right to know for their own safety. Also , the places doing it right deserve to be given recognition for doing so, often at the cost of their own profits.
I’ve been to multiple spots know where they either lied about curbside or offered none only to find out that once inside multiple people weren’t wearing masks; I’ve seen some really terrible practices throughout this pandemic and it makes me wonder if they cant be bothered with something so easy and so public and front of house facing, then what the hell is going on in the back. Multiple places have been taken out of our rotations due to this, however it’s getting to the point now where if I eliminated all the spots I’d be down to about 5 spots that we frequent.
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Vanity financed restaurants will survive. Or globally financed. The artist class, if you will…not so much. Makes you wonder.
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Completely agree about not kicking folks while they’re down, BUT. If you’re eating out, you’re taking a bigger risk than if you’re not. If you see enough issues that you won’t return to a restaurant, why not at least report it to the local board of health? Let THEM check it out, and if they deem it safe enough, so be it. And of course, make noise here about the places doing it RIGHT!
I see many of those, yet the staff at the restaurants that are open for dining on site (inside or out) are at risk every day because they don’t know if the customers are being safe when they’re not at the restaurant. Seems like it’s only right that it should go both ways.
I feel like this is a constant conversation among my friends (foodies and non-) these days. Hell, we’re also discussing how stores are doing it right/wrong. If nothing else, I do find the stories (restaurants and stores) to be consistent, regardless of whether they’re good or bad.
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5 spots for eating inside (or even inside) would be 5 more than we’re doing. Take-out only, basically Shanghai Bun, Sichuan Cottage, Tino’s, and prepared foods from Costco and Shoprite. And when I read about what people are seeing at places that are serving inside, I have no desire to risk it. Even thinking about eating outside makes me nervous. Maybe I’m paranoid, but we’re both 70 and Mark has asthma. We missed having a party for his 70th in May; I’m hoping we can have it for his 71st. (My 70th is this week; I’m going to get all my favorites from Sichuan Cottage.)
I suppose if you’re younger and have no health conditions, it’s different. And I am jealous.
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Well, happy birthday to you both! Personally, I think all of your favorites from Sichuan Cottage is a fantastic way to celebrate!!
For the record, I’ve done very little takeout amd have only eaten outside at 4 restaurants since March—6-7 times in total. That said, there has been more ice cream in my rotation this year… 
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Should clarify, Have only done takeout since March no inside eating nor outside eating, but sadly I have to walk inside some spots to grab food and even then I’ve seen some horror shows.
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I guess Mrs. P & I are in the minority in dining indoors, but we have only gone to places that we feel safe at (special hepa filters, servers fully masked, tables nicely spaced). We also dine very early at 5 PM when the restaurants first open and everything is still clean. We usually have the whole restaurant to ourselves for the 1st hour or so. We also want to support these local restaurants and keep them in business We have had a pretty short rotation of acceptable restaurants including Bistro D’Azur, Drew’s, Il Nido, Belford Bistro, Bloom, and Cafe Panache.
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We haven’t done indoor dining since March which if I had known THAT was going to be our last indoor dining experience for a while, I would have pushed to eat somewhere else. Another story entirely! We did indoor eat a couple of times in the Catskills and in Cape Cod over the summer but cases were quite low at that point and precautions were high. We felt pretty safe all in all.
Our challenge is exactly what @CurlzNJ pointed out. Even if the restaurants are doing everything they can do inside their walls, they have no control over their staff outside of work and their customers. This is all about personal risk tolerance and mitigation.
Happy birthday @eleeper and belated to Mark. This is a strange year. We weren’t able to have a memorial for my dad this year but hope to have one in the summer/fall 2021.
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Happy, happy birthday! Enoy with that fantastic food!
Happy Birthday to you and Mark! I’m sure the food from Sichuan Cottage will be better than just about anywhere else (except maybe Shanghai Bun).
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Charlie’s of Bay Head just called to cancel my weekend reservation. It’s on their fb page that they are doing cleaning.
… Therefore, in addition to the above precautions, Charlie’s of Bay Head has also hired an outside professional company to sanitize the entire facility. We remain diligent and committed in our efforts in offering a welcoming, safe, and secure environment. We will keep the public updated as to when we will be reopening our doors.
Warm regards,
Charlie’s of Bay Head Management Team.
Everyone stay safe out there. I felt pretty off all day today and thought what the heck. I should be a good citizen and get tested even though I highly doubt I have it. Went to at least 5 places and in Monmouth county and couldn’t get a test anywhere. The only place i found is the local urgent care but they only have 100 tests per day and people start lining up 1.5 hours before they even open. Not exactly ideal conditions to stand around in 30 degree weather when you aren’t well.
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