Dean Pappas is stuck between an indoor-dining ban and a hard place.
His family has been running the Glen Oak Cafe in Glen Ellyn, Ill., for 43 years. Thanks to carryout and a $57,000 federal loan, Mr. Pappas managed to avoid going out of business when pandemic lockdowns forced him to suspend indoor dining from March to June. The construction of a tent helped him regain a sizable amount of business over the summer. But business plunged in October when the state ordered restaurants in his county to stop offering indoor dining for a second time; it was banned statewide the following month. Mr. Pappas ignored the mandates and kept serving customers indoors at his 160-seat breakfast and lunch restaurant.
Nonetheless, sales remain 60% lower from last year.
“I’m not making anything,” said Mr. Pappas, 60 years old. “But at least I’m keeping the place going.”
Tensions are growing in parts of the country over on-premises dining and drinking bans, one of the most visible pandemic-related restrictions for many Americans in the crisis’s current phase.
