More Illinois restaurants keep dine-in open despite state mandates

I'm rondrell moore.

New covid-19 restrictions are now in place in illinois.

This applies to all counties in our viewing area in the land of lincoln.

Starting today... bars and restaurants cannot have indoor services.

Outdoor bar and dining services must end at 11 o-clock at night.

Reservations are required for each party.

There will also be capacity limits at businesses and gatherings.

This is limited to the lesser of 25 guests ..

Or 25 percent of overall room capacity.

The new mitigations do "not" apply to schools nor polling places.

The restriction that's causing the most controversy is indoor dining.

While the mandate was in place today... many local restaurants decided to stay open to indoor dining.

Businesses we talked with said they couldn't afford to close up shop.

News 10 bureau chief gary brian tells us about what things are looking like in richland county.

Gar} "new covid-19 restrictions went into place today here in illinois.

However here in downtown olney not much has changed."

When the pandemic began businesses closed down.

That shutdown was difficult for restrauants like hovey's diner.

"it was devastating to our business.

We literally, we had to layoff a lot of our staff.

The few that we were able to keep on we had to decrease their hours.

Our customers were upset because they couldn't come in.

We have a lot of people that this was their social interaction.

It was financially, it was devastating financially."

During the shutdown hovey's only saw about 20% of it's normal sales.

Since then the business has been recovering.

With another shutdown being announced business owner stacey dunlap had a tough decision to make.

"we wont survive if we do it again."

That feeling is being felt by many around olney.

Locally owned restrauants like joe's pizza and hv's food and spirits have announced they will stay open.

Leaving mostly corporate owned businesses following the mandate.

Dunlap says her business only stayed afloat thanks to help from a local bank and the paycheck protection program.

The paycheck protection program closed at the beginning of august.

Leaving dunlap's business and businesses like hers with limited options.

"i mean this virus is serious and all the restrauant owners are taking it very serious.

But at the same time, we're just beside ourselves with everything honestly."

In olney, gary brian news 10.