Erie cafe moves eating to vacant hotel rooms

Like other Pennsylvania dining establishments, the new Oliver’s Rooftop restaurant, located on the eighth flooring of the New Hampton Inn & Suites on Erie’s bayfront, can’t for the moment offer clients a seat in the eating area.

But even less than new restrictions imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf to tamp down the distribute of coronavirus, the lodge is absolutely free to supply place company.

At a time when hotel occupancy is at a small ebb, Scott Enterprises, which owns the lodge, sees an prospect in some of all those empty rooms.

Commencing Thursday, the hotel will begin supplying 2½-hour rentals on 30 of its larger sized suites, which have been set up with eating-home tables to supply in-space eating for amongst 4 and eight friends. The charge for the space will be $40 with a minimum foods invoice of $49.

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“We are seeking to do one thing exclusive,” said Nick Scott Sr., president of spouse and children-owned Scott Enterprises. “We are in a resort and most accommodations will not have any occupancy proper now.”

Leasing rooms, where by waiters can acquire orders and produce foodstuff and drinks, is a way to deal with two challenges at the exact time.

The tactic is not completely unique.

Chris N. Scott, a vice president of Scott Enterprises, said, “We imagined we experienced invented this principle, but we are looking through there are other individuals in Pennsylvania performing it.”

When eating places aren’t allowed to give dine-in services right up until Jan. 4, serving modest groups of persons in hotel rooms “is totally lawful,” Chris Scott said.

The point out-requested shutdown came at a tough time for several dining places, particularly Oliver’s, which had been opened considerably less than two weeks when the governor imposed constraints.

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“The critiques have been great,” Nick Scott Sr. said. “The previous working day we were there we experienced people today coming for lunch and meal. Individuals like the total thought of the spot. And all of a unexpected, after two weeks, ‘Bang,’ we get shut down. We place our heads together. We imagined we must attempt to do some thing.”

Dine-in service is getting merged for now with a new product for takeout service that enables buyers to place their orders and have them sent to their cars outside the resort.

The area provider option is predicted to give two various seatings in every place every day, with time to clear and sanitize the room in involving groups.

Nick Scott Jr., who is also a vice president of the enterprise, mentioned the place services system should really assistance continue to keep personnel on the job.

“We have a excellent workforce of people in all of our amenities,” he said. “Beneath the governor’s most recent buy, they place a lot of people out of positions at a time when it is really normally incredibly busy.”