Restaurant owners are trying to determine when they will be able to run business as normal as COVID-19 cases spike across Columbus.
Katalina’s Café owner Kathleen Day closed her Clintonville location at the beginning of July as a precaution for one of her employees showing symptoms.
Within days of the location closing, she found out that an employee had tested positive. Day kept the Clintonville location closed and shut her Harrison West location for deep cleaning shortly after.
“It just seemed like it was going to get worse before it got better. I wanted to close and now I’ve decided to close even longer until I can at least get employee test results back and be sure that I can safely reopen,” Day said.
Day spent the last few months working to increase business at her restaurants with carry-out and delivery. She said things began to look up in May and June.
Katalina’s is one of few restaurants which use disposable utensils and items which are easy to throw away should COVID come through the restaurant.
Day said she followed all precautions given by the Center for Disease Control and other health organizations to keep her employees and customers safe. She said the trouble is there’s no telling or tracking exactly where the virus is coming from.
Day has not decided when she will reopen the locations but did say she will stick with take-out and curb-side delivery when the restaurants open.