Portland, Bend, Eugene area Bars & Restaurants pivot back to Outdoors Only
Oregon is on it’s fourth surge of COVID-19, and today governor Kate Brown announced that 15 counties will move into the ‘Extreme Risk’ category which sends Portland, Eugene, and Bend and other major cities into another freeze on indoor eating and drinking among other restrictions. That means your favorite bars, breweries, pubs, and eateries will be forced to lay off staff and restrict patrons to purchasing takeout or outdoor seating only.
The 15 counties moving to ‘Extreme Risk’ are: Baker, Clackamas, Columbia, Crook, Deschutes, Grant, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath, Lane, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk and Wasco. Notably, Washington county is staying in ‘High Risk’ which means part of the Portland-metro area which includes Beaverton and Hillsboro are still open for 25% capacity indoors.
High Risk restrictions on eating and drinking out:
Indoor dining prohibited. Takeout highly recommended.
Outdoor dining allowed: 100 people in extreme risk counties including individual dining pods. Outdoor seating: 6 people per party and per table maximum, limit 2 households.
Individual dining pods allowed outdoors subject to outdoor capacity limit. Dining Pod Seating: Limit 1 household, four (4) people maximum per pod.
11:00 p.m. closing time
It’s easy to see how some of the public has eased their own personal precautions with vaccinations rolling out, but still only 26% of Oregonians are vaccinated, not nearly enough to control the virus. Oregon is now ranking #1 in the country for fastest growing amount of new COVID-19 cases. Plus, a new study by the Centers of Disease Control also correlates surges with eases of restrictions in indoor activities, especially when eating and drinking is involved.
This will be the third time the Portland-area is forced to shut down since last Spring, and just when taprooms were attempting to staff up for the summer and what many expected to be the end of the virus as more people get vaccinated. This is extremely bad news for bars and restaurants, if the risk assessment holds then many may opt not to reopen at all and if they do it will be very difficult to get back up to regular service. As almost any hospitality industry owner or hiring manager will tell you, it’s been very difficult to even find staff willing to work in dangerous conditions with the virus surge and that reluctance may just get worse after shutdown 3.0.
This will put taprooms with prime outdoor seating options in the spotlight, expect to find it more difficult to get into the patios at Level Beer and Migration Brewing. And with this Friday’s opening of TopWire Hop Project in Woodburn (also moving into extreme risk) just in time for the new restrictions, the outdoor only venue will likely move to a reservation only system. The good news is that the governor has raised the limits on outdoor capacity in extreme risk from the past, it used to be capped at 50 but it will now be 100.
Also, Washington County’s proximity to Portland, it’s possible that taprooms and restaurants in Beaverton and Hillsboro could see their own surge of cases from people flocking to those places for lighter restrictions.
The new updated risk levels are set to last April 30 - May 6th, and may be reasessed then if the new infection rates are kept down. So the good news is that we may be able to control the spread and reopen in a few weeks. The health authority and governor also announced that they will reasess the restrictions on a weekly basis, instead of every 2 weeks like they did previously. So fingers crossed for a short lockdown on these restrictions.