Several Central Florida wine bars and wine-focused restaurants will continue to limit indoor capacity to 50%, despite Governor Ron DeSantis lifting all coronavirus restrictions on their establishments yesterday afternoon.
A few hours after the governor’s announcement that Florida would move to Phase 3 of its reopening plan, Mary Montalvo-Weyer, co-owner of Luisa’s Cellar in Sanford, posted a video on social media informing patrons that nothing would change at her business.
“We talked about it,” she said in the video, “and we decided that what is best for us and for you is [to] keep 50% capacity like we were doing the whole time. We’re gonna keep on doing social distancing, [and] all of us are gonna keep on wearing our masks.”
“I don’t think it’s the right time to go back into a full-blown restaurant capacity,” she told her followers.
Montalvo-Weyer says Luisa’s Cellar is “blessed with a lot of square footage,” so she can seat plenty of patrons while maintaining social distance, but the choice to continue to limit her onsite business was still complicated.
“It wasn’t a difficult decision morally,” she said today, “but it was financially.”
Montalvo-Weyer has a medical condition that could put her at a higher risk for repercussions from COVID-19. But other wine bar owners in the area are making the same types of calls.
Continue reading “Orlando area wine bars maintain capacity limits despite Florida’s Phase 3 reopening”
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