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But there's an important key to remember. The fact that restaurants or bars CAN be open doesn't mean that they're going to get customers showing up.

Bars and restaurants base their ability to stay afloat partially on a certain occupancy level, and even if every state and locality completely eliminated their restrictions, I would guess that those bars and restaurants wouldn't hit those occupancy levels because people are trying to be safe.

Here in California, I don't care whether they open up indoor dining or not; I have no intent on going to eat indoor in a restaurant. A few weeks back I had a day off so my wife took a day off and we did a Friday date lunch. The restaurant said when she made the reservation that they couldn't guarantee outdoor seating, and my wife told them "that's fine but if there aren't tables outside when we get there we'll go somewhere else."

A lot of people are like us; they aren't going for indoor dining anywhere. A lot of people may go for indoor dining, but are trying to keep their nights dining out to a minimum or only for very special occasion due to the risk. A lot of people who may have paired indoor dining with other date events (movies, concerts, theater) don't have those other events to go to, so they're not going to go to a restaurant.

None of this requires that people stay home 100% of the time, but if every person that normally would go out X amount of times per month are only going out to eat 25% of X per month, it kills the restaurants anyway.

As I've said before, this is going to be a shit sandwich for restaurants and bars regardless of what we do regarding government-mandated lockdowns or occupancy limits. Because I believe that enough people are changing their behavior voluntarily that many of them will go under regardless of what the government says. It'll be blamed on lockdowns, of course. But that doesn't mean that they would have been full if there were no lockdowns in the middle of a pandemic.

I think our June/July spike in Texas proves that if the bars are allowed to reopen, they'll be well patronized.

Is that a good idea?  I won't comment.  But it's already been proven out once, about 3 months ago.

Perhaps we should be focusing our efforts on mandating improved ventilation/filtration for indoor venues.  And then reassuring the public that they're safer than they were before.

And also reassure the public that outdoor spread is minimal under most conditions, and that outdoor venues are pretty safe, to remove some of the misinformation and disinformation that's been spreading and causing FUD over the past 9 months.

I'm not exaggerating when I say, this will be over-- COMPLETELY OVER-- one way or another, when Spring rolls around.  So if public safety is truly a concern, then steps in the right direction are warranted.  Insisting that gatherings > 10 people are not allowed, won't fly forever.  It's barely flying right now.  And all the rest of the measures. 

Mask mandates I think can remain in place for a longer period of time, but again, wearing a mask whilst in a bar or restaurant consuming, isn't really possible or realistic.

Well if the answer is massive spikes in cases and then deaths... I'm not sure it's the answer anyone actually wants.

Right... this is my point.  There is no actual, viable solution, short of an effective vaccine available almost immediately. 

And yet, this is the reality we face.

Exactly. There is no actual, viable solution unless we have a vaccine. It's just a question of the least bad strategy.

Full reopening can have two results:

• People assume that if the government opens things, it must be safe, so they go back to normal... Which results in giant spikes in cases and deaths.
• People continue to moderate their behavior despite openings, and so cases and deaths don't spike, but the restauarants/bars suffer.

Either way it sucks for someone.

There's going to be no stopping the reopenings come Spring (and possibly sooner), so I'm hopeful an effective vaccine can be found and distributed before then.

I'm hopeful, but as I've stated before, I'm not expecting it.

Which is why I'm suggesting focusing on other strategies, such as improving the ventilation/filtration at existing indoor venues, and also discontinuing the misinoformation/disinformation campaigns about how likely the virus is to transmit outdoors in the wide open-- spoiler alert, this is not a major threat vector, and the world governments need to halt and reverse the FUD campaigns they've had in place since March.

We're going to have to consider and implement strategies like the above, unless we get the miracle cure between now and April.

Yesterday, for the first time since this whole thing began, I actually got in my car and drove to Orlando( 2 1/2 hours) for some business meetings over lunch and then again during happy hour.

First of all I have to be honest and say that it felt really great to have social contact with human beings again face-to-face.  I wasn’t expecting this so perhaps I underestimated just how lonely we can get without face-to-face contact.

The places I went to were well run with everybody that works there wearing a mask, all customers wear a mask walking in, walking out, and walking around to use the restrooms. Touchless menus and very distant tables were also implemented.  There were hand soaps and masks available for anyone who did not happen to bring it.

I felt like it was pretty good balance between letting the business be run, letting people move about but move about smartly using all realistic precautions.    I’m not sure outside of a lockdown, what else you could do.

I have definitely found this too. Like some of those simple normalcy‘s just don’t quite hit until you do them again.

and I agree about the restaurants. Maybe it’s just that I really like restaurants.

I miss going to bars.  It's not something I do weekly, but once a month for sure.

Fortunately the breweries I like all have large outdoor biergartens, and they also all serve enough food to NOT be considered a bar, so they reopened when restaurants did.  

The Sweetwater brewery here has a very nice outside area and they can open large doors to expose the inside as well.  And they have some good beer and decent bar food.

Might go for lunch.  This is just off I-85 northeast of the I-75 interchange, about 3 miles north of us.

https://www.sweetwaterbrew.com/

I don't like mandates. Let people decide.

We've eaten inside a couple of times and felt very safe. I don't have a deep desire to go to a bar, but I never really have.

I think there's a certain psychology to a mandate, even if it's toothless for the most part.

Then again, some of our county bars are full up on college kids packed together. It's not ideal