GA’s restaurants were set to make $25B, then COVID-19 hit. Here’s what they’re doing to reopen

ATLANTA — The numbers are staggering. Restaurants across Georgia laid off hundreds of thousands of workers since March because of the coronavirus shutdown.

Channel 2 anchor Jorge Estevez spoke with the CEO of the Georgia Restaurant Association, Karen Bremmer, who told him the association had worked hard to make customers feel safe and get those employees back to work.

“In Georgia, we had 19,000 restaurants, over half a million workers, and we were on track to do $25 billion in revenue this year,” Bremmer said this is what the restaurant industry looked like before the coronavirus.

Now, three to four months later, things look a lot different.

“Fifty-two percent of our restaurants have been temporarily closed. Ninety-one percent of our operators have laid off or furloughed employees. We have lost $2.4 billion in revenue and that 91% equates to almost 300,000 workers here in the state of Georgia,” Bremmer said.

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“We got to get those people back to work, and we have to get us back in those restaurants as long as we stay safe about it. Tell me, what have you guys been doing? I know you’ve been working with the governor’s office. What are you doing to make us feel safe?” Estevez asked Bremmer.

“We have been working, hosting webinars for all of our members to go into detail on what the executive order are. Giving them suggestions. We’ve been holding round tables and town halls with our members so that people can share best practices because we want people to get back out there and dine in our restaurants. If people aren’t comfortable with dining, then go buy a gift certificate. Go buy and pick up some food to take home with you,” Bremmer said.

Even before COVID-19 began spreading across the world, most restaurants took precautions to sanitize their spaces and made sure employees washed hands and maintained health standards. Estevez asked Bremmer what metro restaurants are doing to make that even better.

“By really a heightened sense of awareness. I have stressed to all of our restaurateurs that even though we’ve been the ‘wash-your-hands, sanitize-everything industry’ with FDA-inspected kitchens, it just needs to be extremely visible and create a lot of awareness you our guests that we are doing the right thing. That we are sanitizing and protecting all of our surfaces so that they have a safe dining experience with us,” Bremmer said.

Tucker allows restaurants to get permits for outdoor dining It's just the latest step for restaurants to ensure social distancing as they begin to reopen.

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