Bay Area restaurants are scrambling with new mask guidelines, including one that is laying off all unvaccinated staff

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Several restaurants were rushing Friday to respond to a new public health recommendation in seven Bay Area counties that advises vaccinated people to wear masks again indoors — as a cautious owner decided to lay off any unvaccinated employees and others quickly announced changes to mask requirements for customers. .

Zareen Khan of Zareen’s in Palo Alto, Redwood City and Mountain View said she sent a notice about non-vaccinated employees to her managers on Friday after reading the new mask mandate in Los Angeles County. Her employees have never stopped wearing masks at work, but she doesn’t want to take a risk as concerns grow about the highly contagious Delta type of coronavirus.

Health officials have said that fully vaccinated people are protected from serious illness, and the new directive is an attempt to prevent the spread of the contagious delta variant among unvaccinated people. Officials said the global recommendation would make it easier to verify that the unvaccinated had been hidden. Directives were issued in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Sonoma counties; Napa and Solano counties did not join the recommendation.

Although restaurant employees have prioritized vaccinations and infections have been greatly reduced, the coronavirus is still infecting people in the hospitality industry. Recently, restaurants such as Khom Loi in Sebastopol, Trinks Café in Gualala (Mendocino County) and the reopened Café Tosca in San Francisco were forced to close temporarily due to a positive case of coronavirus on their staff.

“If anyone doesn’t want to be vaccinated, we will let them go. It is horrible but we need people to understand that this is dangerous,” Khan, who noted that most of her staff have been vaccinated, said Khan, who noted that it is better to be careful than Sorry.”

Others have returned the mask mandates to their employees. At Wursthall in downtown San Mateo on Friday afternoon, General Manager Xian Choy was distributing masks to employees in response to the new directive. Choi said that prior to Friday, no employee who showed evidence of vaccination had to wear a face covering at work. El Rio, the 42-year-old queer bar in San Francisco’s Mission District, has allowed employees to decide whether to wear masks, but starting Friday, employees will be required to wear them, according to general manager Lynne Angel.

It is unclear what restaurants will order from diners. Bay Area health officials said in their announcement that “companies are encouraged to adopt global anonymity requirements for customers who enter the interior of their businesses to better protect their employees and customers.”

From Friday, Zareen will require customers to wear masks indoors again. Daly City’s Bart Grocery restaurant alerted customers on Instagram that it would bring back the mask requirement: “As Delta numbers continue to rise and for the safety of our employees, we are asking that masks be worn while in our store.”

Wursthall Restaurant & Bierhaus in San Mateo, California. As we saw on Wednesday. May 9, 2018. The restaurant is bringing back mask requirements for employees.

Michael McCorm / The Chronicle

But the new guidance is likely to stir confusion – and possibly backtracking – among customers. Choy of Wursthall said the restaurant won’t force customers to wear masks indoors yet, wanting to avoid confrontations. “There’s a lot of friction if we’re the first restaurant to be like, ‘You should wear your mask inside,'” Choi said.

It’s simply not realistic to have diners cover their faces again, said Bob Cena, executive chef of Districts in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland.

“I don’t feel we are in a position to put in place requirements that go beyond what is required,” he said. “People can make their own decisions.”

Part of him is wishing San Francisco would require mask-wearing again, said Alexis Solomo, of Italian site Seven Hills on Russian Hill, so he’s not in a difficult position asking diners to wear masks when other restaurants don’t. At the same time, he said, another mask mandate is likely to freak people out.

“I know if they did the masks, we’d get a bunch of cancellations,” he said. Solomo said he’s considering asking diners to wear masks when they’re not at their table and again hiding staff.

Some Bay Area restaurants won’t have to change much because of this directive. After lifting the bulk of restrictions in June, some safety-conscious restaurants have put in place their own concealment rules to be more careful in the case of this delicate scenario: new public health guidelines.

The owners of Bartavelle Cafe in Berkeley, which has been fast food only, are relieved that they won’t need to make any major changes to their operations. Restaurant owner Sam Sobolewski said his cafe only recently stopped enforcing masks on customers queuing outside. In cassava in San Francisco, fully vaccinated employees have continued to wear masks at work, co-owner Yuka Irui said.

However, even these restaurants are ready to make further changes if necessary. “We’ll probably have another meeting about it as a crew and see how it all feels,” Sobolevsky said.

Hanging above all this fear of another closing. In a statement, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association said it was not surprised by the new guidance and that it underscores why outdoor dining is a continuous and critical lifeline for restaurants. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted this week to allow small businesses to continue using public sidewalks and parking spaces in small parks and dining areas. But other Bay Area cities have yet to decide whether street closures and outdoor parks will become permanent or long-term fixtures.

And while Friday’s news won’t change Ioroi’s plans to reopen indoor dining at its outdoor restaurant in Richmond next month, it stressed the importance of taking the mask recommendation seriously to prevent further closures.

“I don’t think a lot of restaurants can handle another closure,” she said. “It might mitigate the risks of that.”

Author Ryan Coast contributed to this report.

Elena Kadvany and Janelle Bitker are writers for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: ekadvany, janellebitker

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