NEW YORK - At Randolph Beer on South 4th Street, nearly every table outdoors was taken. And no one was sitting inside.
“COVID is definitely still a very relevant thing. Trump just got it,” said Charlotte Alden, a Williamsburg resident.
“When you’re indoors there’s no air circulating. So that’s one of my concerns. How are they going to filter the air? Right now we’re outdoors, all the air is filtered,” said Katherine Alden, also a Williamsburg resident.
The city has been allowing indoor dining at 25 percent capacity since Wednesday.
But with city’s health department announcing Saturday that Williamsburg has nearly three times the citywide rate when it comes to positive coronavirus cases, some customers say that uptick, along with concern for President Trump and his COVID-19 diagnosis has them thinking now is not the time to be guinea pigs in the city’s indoor dining plan.
“I think it’s going to take a little bit of time for indoors to get back on track. That’s not saying it’s not going to happen sooner,” said Upper East Side resident, Han Lee.
On the flip side, Madison Pate and three of her friends had the entire indoor dining area for Hound’s Tree to themselves.
When they couldn’t score a table outside at this brand new estate winery tasting room, these friends agreed to have their temperature taken by the staff and were quite pleased by this indoor dining setup, which included a fresh breeze.
“It seems like a really good atmosphere. It’s still open air. Nice place to hang out so it’s really fun. And we’re the only table in here,” said Madison Pate, a Williamsburg resident. “It was really comfortable. We’re the only ones inside. They have the doors open and it seems nice.”
The Health Department says Williamsburg is one of four clusters of COVID-19 cases that it is tracking and concerned about. The others are in Southern Brooklyn, Central Queens and Far Rockaway.