🔒Reopening Central Mass. businesses adjust to the new normal

In normal times, running a restaurant might not seem like the kind of job requiring keeping a constant eye on the news. But these are not normal times, and Brendan O’Connor, owner of O’Connor’s Restaurant and Bar in Worcester, is watching closely for signs of what’s around the corner. He’s seen national polls suggesting about half of regular restaurant-goers are ready to dine out again. That works for him, since O’Connor’s has removed half its tables to make space for social distancing once the state allows restaurants to reopen their dining areas.

“We’re big enough to space out for what we will need going for the new normal,” O’Connor said.

Over the past three months, the Irish restaurant has deep-cleaned, repainted, and added screens as physical barriers to the spread of COVID-19.

Like many food service establishments in Central Massachusetts, it has been doing solid business offering curbside pickup. O’Connor said that has given his staff and his customers practice with procedures continuing when sit-down dining resumes.

So far, he said, dinners have been extremely understanding about following safety guidelines.

If anyone has trouble doing that – say, refusing to wear a mask while entering the restaurant and walking past other diners to a table – they won’t be welcome in the establishment.

“If you’re being a jerk, you’ve got to stay at home,” O’Connor said. “It’s about everybody else. It’s about your mother, your father.”

Under the Massachusetts state reopening plan, restaurant dining areas are part of Phase 2, which could begin reopening on June 8 at the earliest.

Under Phase 1, certain construction, manufacturing, and other activity began on May 18, while other businesses including hair salons were allowed to open on May 25.

As businesses around Central Massachusetts reopen after being shut down for more than two months, their staffs and their customers are adjusting to new regulations and policies, as the companies try to maximize their revenue while limiting the risk of further spread of coronavirus, all while hoping customers remain calm about the restrictions. 

Small staff

Mary Ream, owner of Profiles Hair Salon in Fitchburg, said her business opened at well under its usual full capacity on May 26, after the Memorial Day holiday. 

Only three hairdressers are currently working there. The nail salon part of the business is not allowed to open until Phase 2.

For now, Ream said, the hairdressers are typically only seeing one client at a time, with a separate room to process another person.

Everyone has to wear masks, and there’s a handwashing station available for clients before they sit down.

Ream said the business normally books appointments in advance rather than doing walk-in business anyway, and she’s posted a sign on the door making the rules clear.

She said everyone who enters the building is aware of safety requirements and ready to follow them.

“I haven’t come across anybody that’s fighting it for sure,” she said. “Everybody’s pretty compliant because they want their hair done.”

It helps, she said, people got used to the routine of wearing masks and maintaining distance while visiting essential businesses like grocery stores during the shutdown.

Making in-person meetings safe

Like hair salons, most office spaces are part of Phase 1 and are now allowed to be open as long as they remain at no more than 25% of their regular maximum occupancy.

Robert Cox, managing partner of Bowditch & Dewey, said the law firm is resuming in-person operations with an abundance of caution. 

The firm has offices in Framingham and Worcester, as well as Boston, where office openings are on a more delayed schedule.

“We’ve been continuing to provide services throughout the pandemic,” Cox said. “It is really seamless in that we were able to switch to remote working pretty quickly.”

Cox said it helps a great deal of legal work is conducted over email anyway, and the firm already allowed employees to conduct some of their work from home. 

But, he said, in-person meetings are a traditional part of the business, and the firm sees the need to resume them, with careful attention to safety measures.

“The reopening part is a lot more complicated than getting people to work remotely,” he said.

Cox said Bowditch’s operations team looked closely at the use of office space. To remain below 25% of maximum occupancy, it’s now limiting the number of conference rooms in use at any given time. It’s spacing out seating within rooms for social distancing purposes, getting rid of pens and papers in common spaces so people are not touching objects, and cleaning shared rooms before and after they’re used.

To ensure clients follow safety guidelines, Cox said, the firm will inform them of its protocols ahead of time. When they check in at reception, an employee will make sure that they’re wearing masks.

“We are protecting one another, protecting our employees, and we are going to require that our protocol be followed,” he said.

Cox, like O’Connor and Ream, said he and his colleagues recognize they’ll have to keep watching the situation with the pandemic and adjusting as things change.

“We do expect at some point to get back to the point where we’ll have meetings as we have in the past,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen for a while.”