GREENSBORO, N.C. — Businesses are finally feeling some reprieve as Governor Roy Cooper's latest executive order to ease some restrictions takes effect Friday.
The one regulation businesses are most excited about: the alcohol curfew being extended.
"The thing that impacts us is we can be open later now. We can now serve until 11 p.m. so we are planning on taking advantage of that. We adjusted our hours starting today," said SouthEnd Brewing Company Owner Seth Kavorkian.
Like Kavorkian, many other restaurants and brewpubs have been operating at 50 percent capacity for months, but getting the chance to stay open later will certainly help them bounce back.
"It's actually going to help us a lot. It was kind of hard being a dinner-only restaurant to have two full turns during that 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. window of serving alcohol, of course, ten o’clock getting them out, it was kind of tough," said Machete owner Tal Blevins, " We felt like we kind of had to rush people so now being able to serve alcohol until 11 and not having to push people out the door since the curfew was lifted is going to give us a chance to give people the experience we always wanted to give them."
Blevins opened his restaurant one year ago, just three weeks before the pandemic started.
"To be able to do what we’ve done during this year and still be here a year later like oh my God it's great and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it's still a long tunnel," said Blevins.
After the governor made the announcement about restrictions easing Friday, Blevins said their reservations for Friday and Saturday night started booking up.
"It does seem like this new regulation lifting has encouraged people to make more reservations. We do walk-ins, too but with the exception of maybe like right when we open up this evening you'd be hard-pressed to get a walk-in because all of our tables are booked tonight," said Blevins.
The governor loosened restrictions in light of stabilizing and steadily declining coronavirus trends.
The move is giving business owners hope for the future.
"It's definitely a shift towards a much more positive outlook for the future for all of us," said Kavorkian.
Like last time, Kavorkian said he thinks customers will adapt to the 11 p.m. curfew extension quickly.
"Once we made that shift people had to leave earlier and there was a period after that initial change from 11 to 9 where things were a bit slower and everybody sort of adapted so everyone came out earlier and left earlier and that was that so I think it’ll move back the way it was before very quickly," said Kavorkian.
Kavorkian said they've adapted to the changes since the start of the pandemic and are keeping health and safety as their top priority.
"As long as people are comfortable coming out we have been and will continue to take all of the required and recommended precautions," said Kavorkian, "We have spaced our tables out all of our staff wears masks and we require customers to when they’re up from their table."