COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Today marks the first day that Texas is slowly beginning to reopen its economy again.
Small businesses in Bryan College Station are opening their doors again to serve at a 25 percent capacity.
“We are so excited Gov. Abbott is slowly reopening the Texas economy," said Sabi Boutique co-owner Meredith McAuliffe. "We’re excited to see our customers but we too are taking this in phases. We want to make sure that we’re keeping our customers safe and healthy and our staff and our families."
Restaurants that have only been curbside delivery or pickup are excited to seat people inside again.
“We’ve had quite a few tables already today and they’re really excited and happy to be here," said First Watch general manager Lindsey Kahn. "Our staff was ready for them to come back, super excited, fighting over who was going to greet the door to get them in."
During the shelter in place orders, small businesses were hit hard and had to quickly adjust how they were able to operate during these times.
“We wanted to follow all the state and federal guidelines, making sure that we offer hand sanitizer for our customers, we have taped off areas for social distancing as you’re ordering," said Harvest Coffee Bar owner Trey Martin. "We still offer curbside. We have our online ordering at harvestbcs.com. With the order there, they go ahead and pay for it, so it’s contactless payment."
This may also mean setting stricter guidelines for sanitation and interactions.
“We have a checklist for high touch areas, that every hour on the hour, we’re sanitizing and disinfecting who’s done that cleanliness, which fits in with our first watch standards anyhow," said Kahn.
Some of these changes will continue to stay even after the virus outbreak clears up.
“We weren’t doing delivery before this, so now we deliver with 4 different delivery companies, so we want to keep that going. We also want to keep for the foreseeable future to doing curbside delivery. So customers that don’t want to come inside, we’re going to offer that," said Martin.
Gov. Abbott hopes to increase capacity to 50 percent by mid-May if the number of virus cases remain low.
“Small businesses are the heart of BCS community and we just really appreciate the support," said McAuliffe. "We’re the ones that love to give back to this community, and with customer support we will continue to thrive."
Many local businesses are still doing curbside delivery and take out. Some, like Sabi Boutique, will open on Monday after more preparations to make sure they are ready and safe to start up again.