GREENSBORO, N.C. — Salons and restaurants are just some of the businesses that got to reopen their doors in phase two this past weekend.
SouthEnd Brewing Co. was just one of many serving people inside for the first time in a long time starting Friday night.
"It was great to see a lot of regulars and new customers stop by. A number of people we haven’t seen during the shutdown," said the owner of SouthEnd Brewing Co. Seth Kavorkian.
Kavorkian said business was steady throughout the weekend.
"We're restricted to 50 percent capacity and I don’t think at any point we even reached that but there was a good crowd of people that were being fairly respectful of social distancing," he said, "but it was an energy in the taproom we haven’t felt in a couple of months and it was great to have that back."
Kavorkian said in preparation for reopening, the brewpub moved tables and seating around to create social distancing.
He said there was some challenge in keeping people moving through the taproom.
"It’s just a matter of one updating signage so people are aware of what they’re supposed to do and how they’re supposed to move," said Kavorkian, "We'll be modifying how the traffic flows around the bar and the traffic flow around the restaurant to optimize paths through so we don’t get clusters of people."
Business at Smohk'd wasn't as busy as co-owner Aaron Bray would've liked.
"We were sort of I guess unimpressed with the amount of people that came out. Surprised," he said.
Bray said with it being Memorial Day weekend, he expected more people to come out to eat.
"We probably only had about 20 tables all day Saturday, " he said.
Restaurants across Greensboro are trying to adjust to social distancing in place. Things were different than before at Smohk'd.
"We went away from waiting on tables and we’re doing on the counter service," said Bray.
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That in itself was something the staff had to get used to, but they used the slow traffic as an advantage to train employees.
"It’s almost a training ground. I almost expect next week to 30 days will be a lot more business," said Bray, "Were still focused on the cleaning and keeping the place clean for everyone, but I think once it gets to where people get out and word of mouth tell people it’s still a comfortable safe place to eat."
Local Honey Salon in downtown Greensboro reopened for the first time in weeks this past Friday.
Business Manager Kait Roy said it was great to be back to work.
"Everyone was super thankful to be getting their hair done again and we were super thankful to have our doors open and have people coming in and out again," she said.
Local Honey is requiring everyone to wear masks and is taking temperatures before people enter the salon.
Something, to Roy's surprise, people are handling very well.
"We just use these to scan everybody’s forehead that way we know what their temperature is and we thought that was going to be a little bit of a hurdle. We were like, 'Oh, is that gonna be weird?' but it really hasn’t been," said Roy. "Everybody’s been super understanding and compliant and it’s gone so smoothly so far."