DeKALB – A local Mexican restaurant that has been a DeKalb staple for decades announced it will open for indoor dining, despite the move defying Illinois state health guidance to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Rosita’s Mexican Restaurant staff wrote in a Tuesday social media post they made the decision to reopen their dining rooms while also implementing extra safety precautions to ensure a safe workplace and dining experience.
“If you’re comfortable, we welcome you to safely sit and dine with us throughout our three dining rooms that we are only keeping at 10% capacity, so everyone has plenty of room to be socially distanced,” staff wrote in the post. “We respect your decision on however you would like to join us and appreciate everyone’s understanding while we do all we can to support our employees.”
Rosa Balli, one of the owners of Rosita’s, said Tuesday the restaurant had been closed for indoor dining since Oct. 3, when state health Region 1 – which DeKalb County is part of – went under additional mitigations following a spike in area COVID-19 cases. She said the restaurant is coming up on three months since then and the restaurant is looking ahead to a historically difficult first quarter on top of that.
“So you’re going into another three months of a difficult time frame for business, and there’s only so much you can withstand before those small businesses start to fall off the radar,” Balli said.
Balli said she believes restaurants have been come after too strongly by state government and she has not seen any concrete evidence showing restaurants are the businesses most responsible for spreading the virus. She said the move to open for indoor dining again was a last-ditch effort to avoid employee layoffs and to keep the family business open when small businesses are closing up one by one.
“It’s detrimental to my staff and to my business that we’ve had for 48 years,” Balli said.
Balli said she definitely acknowledges that the virus is out there and the pandemic is real, and masks will be required for patrons to enter the restaurant and staff will continue to wear their masks and sanitizing doors and knobs.
She also said the restaurant has always had a good relationship with the DeKalb County Health Department, they have more than enough space between the three dining rooms where tables can be spaced at least 6 feet apart, and restaurant staff also is looking into an HVAC system upgrade with better filtering.
Balli said she has never experienced something like this before as a business owner. She said it’s really hard to create contingency plans when no one knows what could happen days, weeks or months from now.
“It’s your life’s work,” Balli said.
Balli said the restaurant received less than $100,000 in paycheck protection program, or PPP, loan funds in April and the restaurant was able to not have payroll decreased and have good business with outdoor dining during the summer months.
She said there hasn’t been a lot of traction made at the federal level for the next round of PPP loans until recently, and she worries about small businesses already feeling the adverse consequences of the government not acting quick enough with those additional loans.
“It’s too late for a lot of them that closed, unfortunately,” Balli said. “I don’t want that to happen to us.”