Restaurants can begin serving indoors on Wednesday as part of Phase III of the Gov. Tim Walz’s Stay Safe MN Plan. Kim Samuelson said RBJ’s will be open at 6 a.m. Wednesday and hopes to feed a lot of people. “Wednesday we have the okay to go with indoor dining,” said Samuelson. “We’ll be open 6 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 7 a.m. – 9 p.m. Sunday. We’ll have our regular menu available and takeout. We will have to follow the 50 percent capacity and social distancing. It would be nice if our customers would wear masks. We just want to follow all the rules and feed a lot of people.”
Samuelson said it’s been a long couple of months and it’s nice to get close to normal. “It’s been a long couple of months,” said Samuelson. “Our staff is eager to get back to work. Some of them have been working in an entirely different environment then they were used to. But this is about as close as it can get to normal, so we’re going to take our chances. We’re going to feed as many people as we can.”
RBJ’s will also be holding mini-rhubarb festivals each Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. through July said, Samuelson. “Summertime is rhubarb time and RBJ’s is rhubarb headquarters,” said Samuelson. “We’ve got our rhubarb-strawberry jam, pies, rhubarb cake, and crisp available 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. You can come on in and grab it. We’ll be doing that on Thursdays. We also have some chocolate things, of course, salads you can take to the lake, and that type of thing. Please call by Tuesday if you have a special request.”
Paul Gregg at the Irishman’s Shanty said he was surprised but happy to get the news they could open indoors so soon. “I’ve got to admit I was surprised,” said Gregg. “I was just talking to Chris (Fee) on the radio on Friday saying – geez, we probably won’t get to open until July. And I’m happy to be wrong. Chris was right that there was a lot of pressure for the governor and people want things to be open and open the right way. It’s one of those I think we have to safe about it and we’re going to be. We’re going to be 50 percent capacity. So, starting on Wednesday we will have indoor dining.”
Gregg was appreciative of the community support while operations have been different, but very happy to be opening up more like normal. “We’ll be ready to go Wednesday morning and we’re very happy about that,” said Gregg. “We appreciate all the support. The local people have been supporting us with the takeout and even the dine outside. We’re very happy. We’ve been looking forward to this and hopefully, we can stay open, do this right for everybody’s sake and keep us in business providing a service to Crookston. I keep saying I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy we’re going to be open, so it’s all good.”
The Irishman’s Shanty will be open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. for food, with the off-sale open until 10 p.m. Gregg said how late the bar stays open will be dictated by how busy they are. “We actually have expanded now 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” said Gregg. “Off-sale is going to be open until 10 p.m. and we’ve moved the restaurant to 9 p.m. As business dictates, we’ll stay open later. Right now, we’re open at 8 a.m., the kitchen will be open to 9 p.m., and the off-sale until 10 p.m. Bar will be dictated on business. Weekends we figure we’ll be open a little bit later, maybe Friday and Saturday to 10-11 p.m. It is legal to be open all the way to 1 a.m. and we’ll see how that goes, how comfortable people are. All of us working here will be wearing masks. We’ll be doing our disinfecting. They do encourage people, we aren’t requiring it, to wear a mask to come on out. They do recommend that you wear a mask if you’re walking by tables. You can’t eat and drink with a mask on of course, but they do recommend people to have a mask handy and be safe about it.”
The Shanty will also be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. for off-sale on Sundays, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. for the restaurant and bar.
McDonald’s will continue to be available just by drive-through, as the corporate policies aren’t allowing the restaurant to open up indoors yet. We’ll have more with local restaurants preparing to welcome customers inside on Tuesday.
