Indoor Dining In Philadelphia Expands To 50 Percent: What To Know

PHILADELPHIA — On Tuesday, Philadelphia officials announced good news for restaurants in the city.

Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said starting Friday, restaurants in the city can accommodate 50 percent of their capacity.

Restaurants in the city were permitted to allow indoor dining with a 25 percent capacity limit on Sept. 8, the same date that Gov. Tom Wolf gave restaurants statewide the ability to offer indoor dining with a 50 percent capacity limit.

Farley at the time gave no indication of when the city would permit 50 percent indoor dining capacities.

But this week Farley gave the go-ahead for 50 percent capacity limits on indoor dining.

So what does that mean?

The new capacity limits are in line with current Pennsylvania restrictions.

And per the Governor's rules, restaurants choosing to expand capacity must self-certify following state and CDC guidelines in addition to the city's rules.

Indoor dining has restrictions that are similar to, and even exceed, indoor dining restrictions set by the state.

Restrictions for indoor dining include:

• diners must wear masks when they are not seated at a table;
• a 25 percent capacity limit;
• only four diners per table;
• six feet of space between tables;
• no bar service, alcohol only available as part of the same transaction as a meal;
• indoor dining orders will have an 11 p.m. last call;
• establishments will be required to be closed for service by midnight;
• physical barriers, such as sneeze guards or partitions, will be installed in restaurant kitchens and at cash registers, host stands, and food pick up areas where 6-feet of social distancing is difficult;
• employees will be screened for symptoms before every shift and prevented from remaining on-site if they have coronavirus symptoms;
• employees must wear both masks and face shields.

Any establishment that does not follow these restrictions will be shut down.

"The falling case counts we're seeing show the success of our strategy," Farley said. "I said that we would scale back our restrictions slowly and carefully if case counts continued to fall, and we're doing that now. If folks continue to follow our guidance, I believe that we will be able to relax more restrictions."

Farley has said there is no exact figure on coronavirus data that would cause the city to suspend indoor activities. However, he said should case counts or the percent of positive tests rise sharply and evidence indicated the rise is tied to dining inside, the city would consider suspending indoor dining.