COVID-19 pandemic, a London, Ont., restaurant owner is ready to reopen indoor dining again.“I hope we’ll get a lot of support as we start up again, but I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” admitted Jim Karaouzas, the owner of Jimbo’s Pub and Eatery.The restaurant installed a heated patio to remain open during Ontario’s latest COVID-19 wave, which involved the highly-contagious Omicron variant.“It’s hard to do business in the cold, but it helps,” said Karaouzas.
Ontario to begin lifting COVID-19 restrictions on Jan. 31 Ontario began easing COVID-19 restrictions Monday morning starting at 12:01 a.m.
for restaurants, bars, other food or drink establishments without dance facilities along with other types of businesses.The province is permitting these facilities to operate at 50-per cent capacity.Tatiana Tarevski, the manager of Fatty Patty’s Bar and Grill says the latest reopening is long overdue after restaurants went back to takeout-only earlier this month.“January is very hard on the restaurant industry to begin with, and then to force us to remain open only as takeout… you can’t continue to yo-yo this industry,” she sighed.“I don’t know what another lockdown would do to us, and I really hope we don’t come to that.” Restaurant group calls for ‘immediate guidance’ on possible easing of Ontario restrictions next week Despite the challenges, Tarevski says the restaurant is ready to reopen on Monday.“We are all so excited to have people back in.
We’ve been doing stuff all week to get ready, setting back up again, ordering more stuff and getting staff ready to come back in.”The owner of another London restaurant, J Dee’s Market Grill, shares the same excitement.“We’re extremely pleased about it.