Restaurant workers, diners react to governor shutting down indoor dining to fight COVID-19 surge

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    Scranton, PA (WNEP) — The new state-wide pandemic restrictions were outlined by the state this afternoon.

Governor Wolf said starting at midnight Friday, the state is shutting down indoor dining, after-school activities, indoor gyms, and theaters.
Diners settled in for a good Italian meal here at Alfredo’s Pizza on South Washington Avenue in Scranton, many knowing this will be the last time they will be dining indoors for the next few weeks.

With the drastic spike in COVID cases, the state is once again shutting down indoor dining in an effort to flatten the curve.

“Because we figured it’s the last night we’re going to be out until God knows when, beyond January at this point, that’s the way we’re looking it,” said Patti Urbanowicz, of West Scranton.

Workers at Alfredo’s say this will be tough, especially with the holidays coming.

“This is going to hurt us, but it’s going to hurt our employees. We have lots of servers, unfortunately, are not going to be able to do their serving job, so we’re unfortunately going to have to lay some of them off,” said Matthew Martini, manager of Alfredo’s Pizza.

Governor Wolf announced the new temporary pandemic restrictions with several activities that will be shut down starting at midnight Friday, Dec. 12, that will stay in place until Jan. 4.

“We need to slow the spread right now in order to save lives. If we don’t, we’re going to be in big trouble,” said Gov. Wolf during a news conference on the mitigation efforts.

The governor says restaurants can still offer outdoor dining and take-out food and cocktails.

The general manager of Bar Pazzo says they are coming up with ways to make take-out dinners more appealing.

“Let everybody know what we’re doing for take-out. Make it very easy for people, bringing things out to cars. Nobody has to get out of their cars. We don’t do delivery, but the curb-side is a big deal for us,” said Dominic Marianacci, general manager of Bar Pazzo.

Restaurant workers agree that take-out isn’t the same as dining in.

“We do a great take-out, but that only pays the bills so far. You can only do so much take-out at one time,’ said Martini.

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