After almost two months of lockdown, restaurants and cafes around the world are starting to reopen.
As we know, while these venues can start trading again, there are strict social distancing protocols in place to minimise the potential spread of COVID-19.
For most venues this means limiting the number of patrons allowed in at any one time, inevitably leaving a number of empty seats exposed.
One restaurant in South Carolina has figured out a way to avoid the sight of empty seats – blow-up dolls from Amazon.
“Instead of using scary, yellow tape or roping off the empty tables, I thought, ‘We’re going to make this restaurant look full,'” owner of Open Hearth Paula Starr Melehes told the media.
Check out what this Greenville County restaurant has "sitting" at unused tables as it reopens for business tonight. The owner said she wanted to feel like the restaurant was full.🤣
More about the customer dolls here: https://t.co/DxwZFXLiwX pic.twitter.com/N95y3Zu1Jm— WYFF News 4 (@wyffnews4) May 12, 2020
Apparently, the dolls came from Amazon and are “the G-rated kind” of blow-up dolls. Melehes even went the extra step of dressing each doll to make them look extra lifelike.
“My grandson told me they look kind of creepy,” Melehes said. “But, I think, when people walk in, they’re going to laugh.”
While the dolls are a bit of fun, Melehes insisted the restaurant is taking things seriously, pacing out customer seating, providing an automatic hand sanitizer dispenser and using disposable menus.
“We’re doing everything we can to make sure we do this right,” Melehes said. “We just didn’t want the virus to be what shuts us down.”
