restaurants face tough decisions

Them down, some local businessowners are facing the even more difficult prospect....of doing it themselves.....as new covid cases rise at an alarming rate, with no sign of slowing.

Newschannel 2's joleen ferris reports.

The state or county didn't close down ocean blue's dining room.

Perhaps even more difficult.....they made the decision....to close themselves...and move to takeout only .

None .

None 1:07 "the risk of being open, the risk to our customers, the risk to our staff, is just not worth being open for full dining" 1:35 "it's not safe.

The public does not feel safe.

The staff does not feel safe.

I don't feel safe putting our staff and our employees in harm's way" surmising even in the spring that covid would be a long-term issue, ocean blue brought their consumers on board and their food went from their dining room...to the customer's kitchen 3:00 "we've shifted to direct to consumer.

We're shipping food directly out of our kitchen, packaging it up, shipping it with dry ice and ice packs and getting almost at home meals that you finish it off and cook it at home" they're targeting cities around the country that have completely shut down.

Celtic harp, on varick street, broke the bad news on their facebook page today that they'reclosing s safe stand up iconic by chesterfield found themselvesinn utica but a lot their business being located in a hotel, came from travelers, and that's gone away" 13:02 "during the week, it was amazing.

You would think weekdays were weekends for us here because we heavily relied on business travelers" now, the trick is reminding the local community that they're here, in the doubletree by hilton, or, former hotel utica 12:25 "i'm just not sure if like the community is aware that we do offer spaced out indoor seating, we have the mezzanine for even more spaced out seating.

It's beautiful up there.

Aesthetics are great.

Also now curbside and takeout, again, something we never did before until post - covid.

And ocean blue owners' new venture, nostro.... 5:55 "nostro's designed to be apartyt thinwe could ha right now, so when we cou open up as apart> covid claims another economic