SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
And finally today, a look at New York City, where reopening restaurants has required constant adaptation to new rules and guidelines to keep people safe, rules about takeout alcohol, outdoor dining and when indoor dining will be allowed. Camille Petersen reports on the challenges of navigating this shifting landscape in one of the country's most cutthroat markets.
(SOUNDBITE OF BARTENDER SHAKING DRINK)
CAMILLE PETERSEN, BYLINE: Usually, bartenders at 67 Orange Street in Harlem perform in front of an audience. People watch from stools around the bar and tightly packed tables. They stand along brick walls and windows with thick maroon curtains.
(SOUNDBITE OF LIQUID POURING INTO GLASS, FIRE IGNITING)
PETERSEN: Karl Franz Williams started this cocktail bar almost 12 years ago. He's watched people fall in love here, even witnessed a wedding. Williams actually named the bar in memory of a Black-owned 19th century dance hall in lower Manhattan. The dance hall's last known address was 67 Orange Street. Williams says cocktail bars are theater.
KARL FRANZ WILLIAMS: Part of it is the mystery, the throwback to the history and old times. And then part of it's the actual actions of the bartenders and the way they do.
PETERSEN: Even though the usual theater is gone right now, 67 Orange Street has stayed open through takeout cocktails, delivery and outdoor dining.
WILLIAMS: I'm sitting here saying that I'm excited because I'm hitting 65, 70% of my pre-COVID sales.
PETERSEN: This is one of Eamon Rockey's favorite bars. He lives up the street from the bar and thinks supporting it through outdoor dining is important.
EAMON ROCKEY: We're sitting next to a closed restaurant which is my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in New York City. It's closed. It's never going to open its doors again.
PETERSEN: He feels safe coming back to bars and restaurants but does look for particular signs of safety - staff and management wearing facemasks, hand sanitizer stations, surfaces getting wiped down, online menus.
ROCKEY: Like, at 67 Orange, you can use your camera and the code that's on your table to look at the menu without ever interfacing with a piece of paper or a piece of plastic that may have been in somebody else's hands.
PETERSEN: Karl Franz Williams says keeping this bar operating has involved endless pivoting. For instance, at first, restaurants in New York City could offer takeout cocktails with snacks, then the food had to be more substantial, which meant opening the kitchen.
WILLIAMS: We had to shift quickly and figure out, what can we put in each of these takeout orders that would meet the qualification for food but that would also keep our pricing reasonable?
PETERSEN: Then came an executive order from Governor Cuomo about monitoring social distancing. And the outdoor dining we're sitting at? The rules on that changed, too. Alex Susskind teaches food and beverage management at Cornell. He says all these changes come with lots of added cost during a time when restaurants are not selling as much. And on top of all that, Susskind says restaurant owners have a whole new job now.
ALEX SUSSKIND: They have to make sure that their guests feel comfortable coming into their business. They're going to want to see that things are being cleaned regularly right in front of them, where in the past, restaurant operators wanted that to be invisible.
PETERSEN: And restaurant employees have to feel safe, too.
SUSSKIND: So there are all of these elements that require the restaurant operator to basically build trust with their guests but also build trust with their employees to make sure that it can all happen.
PETERSEN: It's a new kind of theater - keeping people safe, making sure they feel safe and serving them as much of a restaurant's old magic as possible. For NPR News, I'm Camille Petersen in New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.