Diners, restaurant proprietors happy La Salle County can have indoor dining officially

We’re happy to see our customers again. Hopefully it stays this way and we can stay open as long as possible.

—  Melissa Serby, manager at Woody's Steakhouse in Ottawa

Laddie Frye, Bill Willet and Dean Anderson were happy with Sunday’s news that the state will allow indoor dining at restaurants in La Salle County.

The trio sat at the lunch counter of the Brite Spot in Ottawa exchanging banter and jokes with each other – a daily routine under normal circumstances. On Nov. 4, the state shut down indoor dining, causing their favorite diner to close for a period of time.

“We need it,” Anderson said of indoor dining. “We need it to stay social, to get out, instead of sitting at home alone.”

While some restaurants across the county opened earlier than Sunday’s deadline or remained open during the shutdown, the Illinois Department of Public Health made it official that restaurants within Region 2, which includes La Salle, Bureau, Putnam and Livingston counties, can reopen indoor dining with capacity limits. Capacity is limited to the lesser of 25 people or 25% capacity per room, with tables of no more than four people.

Woody’s Steakhouse in Ottawa was one restaurant taking reservations Sunday night in Ottawa.

“We’re extremely excited,” said Melissa Serby, a manager at Woody’s. “We’re happy to see our customers again. Hopefully it stays this way and we can stay open as long as possible. We lost a lot of business when we were closed. We’re hoping we can make it up.”

Woody’s had a couple of diners Sunday night. The restaurant said it plans to comply 100% with the state’s guidelines.

“We’re ready to do more than just carryouts,” Serby said.

Karen Brennan, who was bartending at Skoog’s Pub and Grill in Utica, said Sunday night was busy.

“Customers appreciate us wearing masks, and they’ve been calling us first to make sure we’re open,” Brennan said. “The reaction has been positive.”

Restaurants have been closed and need to make food and alcohol orders to reopen. Casa Mia in Naplate was among those restaurants, saying Sunday on its Facebook page that the restaurant was hopeful to reopen this week.

Those in the trio at the Brite Spot was in agreement: They were going to enjoy each other’s company while they could. They said it’s unpredictable how long indoor dining may be allowed. If numbers spike again, the governor said regions can return to more restrictions.

“I don’t think they should’ve closed at all,” Frye said. “They shouldn’t have made anybody close, especially when you have restaurants in other towns staying open and the ones in Ottawa having to close.”

“These restaurants have bills to pay. Their employees have bills to pay,” he said.

Ottawa Mayor Dan Aussem told The Times on Thursday night that he was in favor of the governor allowing restaurants to reopen but that the city would continue to take complaints seriously. The City Council sent a letter to the governor’s office in December asking to allow limited indoor dining, but it did not get a response until Friday’s news conference when the governor addressed the state.

On Nov. 4 when the indoor dining shutdown went into place, La Salle County had a 14.1% COVID-19 positivity rate. On Sunday, the positivity rate had decreased to 6.8%.

To move forward to Phase 4 mitigations, which would further ease restrictions on indoor dining and reopen taverns that don’t serve food, the health region that includes La Salle County have three consecutive days below 6.5% positivity (currently at 7.3%), have three days in a row above 20% hospital bed capacity – which it has met – and seven of 10 days with hospitalization decreases, which it is on track to meet.