BUFFALO, N.Y. — St. Patrick's Day often marks the start of spring, and the end of a slow season for bars and restaurants.
However, the coronavirus pandemic has sparked new guidelines for New York State businesses and made many downtown businesses question what this means for them.
Chris Ring, a partner at Rec Room, and Jay Manno, the owner of SoHo Burger Bar and Frankie Primo's +39, both confirmed that a group of bar and restaurant owners from the Chippewa Alliance met Friday to discuss what their establishments would do going forward.
For now, Manno says, things will be business as usual.
"This is real life and people got to, you know, feed their kids, pay their bills, and businesses got to stay open. So, you know, until someone tells us we can't, we're going to stay open," Manno told 2 On Your Side after the meeting.
Manno added that his establishments, as well as others, would be increasing sanitation efforts as well as stocking extra sanitizer and cleaning supplies. He said that bars on the strip may also consider adding fever checks at the door in the future.
For Ring, his popular bar and event venue has had to cancel all concerts until the end of March. Many of these shows had already sold over 175 tickets for the 350 person venue, which now needs to reduce to half capacity under Governor Andrew Cuomo's new gathering guidelines.
Rec Room hopes to reschedule the concerts they can, and they are also taking several precautions. Ring said they are providing gloves to bartenders and security, won't offer fruit in cocktails, have installed extra hand sanitizer stations, and all shifts are voluntary for employees.
Rec Room does also plan to take part in St. Patrick's Day, hosting a party on Sunday with gloves on hands, and fruitless cocktails.
