COVID-19 Reopenings: Saturday Night Diners Flock To Reopened Outdoor Bay Area Restaurants
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Once again there was a buzz among the restaurants in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood Saturday night as outdoor dining returned after being shut down during the recent surge in COVID-19 cases.
After temporarily closing for most of the recent stay-at-home order, the kitchen at tapas restaurant Bask was busy again and customers were socializing over dinner on the sidewalk.
Owner Sabrina Thillard said it had been a full house since opening at 5:30 p.m.
"We are just so overjoyed to see this tonight," Thillard said. "It feels really good. Everybody that's come in tonight or this weekend, they've been so pleasant and so happy and so eager to be here."
Just ask Frederic Neema, who traveled from Oakland to San Francisco to dine at his favorite spot.
"They could serve me cat food, I would eat it, with pleasure," Neema joked. "I would eat anything, actually the food is not important anymore, it's the people. It's the people around me. It's fantastic."
Under the city's rules, tables can only seat up to 6, from two households. They must also be 6 feet apart.
It was a similar scene in the East Bay. Restaurants were full of diners in downtown Pleasanton and also on the Peninsula.
There was was a 20-minute wait for a table at Crepevine in downtown Burlingame. Cooks and servers were going nonstop all night.
"It's busy," said Crepevine owner Giovanni Cea. "It's our first Saturday since we opened and we were expecting people to go out and enjoy their dinner."
Judging by the turnout on Burlingame Ave., they did.
"We think the set up is really nice and we were just saying we hope they will keep it this way into perpetuity," Mike Evans told KPIX 5.
Morgan Evans echoed the sentiment.
"There's a social element to outdoor dining and also just being with your family so it's nice to do it again and it's also nice to support local businesses," Evans said.
