W.Va. restaurants to allow indoor dining on May 21

Week four in the "comeback" plan for West Virginia starts on Monday, but reopening for certain things won't be until Thursday, May 21.

"We're going to commence indoor dining at our restaurants at a 50% capacity," said Gov. Jim Justice.

It's been more than a month since West Virginians have been able to enjoy a meal inside a restaurant. While this wasn't ideal for most, one restaurant owner used the time to do renovations.

"For quite a while now, we wanted to do some improvements and we’re trying to make lemonade out of lemons, and we’ve taken this time the past few weeks to do a complete overall front and back house renovations to the restaurant," said Deno Stanley, owner of Adelphia Sports Bar and Grill in Charleston.

Stanley said they've been closed since March 17 and are hoping to be up and ready for May 21 to start indoor dining.

"We will adhere to the 50% guidelines which is about 70 people for us," Stanley told WSAZ. "You’ll probably see temperature checks at the front door, gloves and masks for staff and no ketchup, salt or pepper on the table. They’ll all be in condiment packages that customers will take out themselves."

But not every restaurant owner can accommodate the new guidelines.

"We can’t take in a quarter or 50% or even 75% of our revenue because our bills don’t change. Our rent isn’t different, our utilities aren’t different, my payroll is not different; everything is the same," said Sandy Call, owner of Bridge Road Bistro in Charleston and Sunset Grill in Huntington.

Call's restaurants are all elegant dining and aren't able to accommodate takeout or to-go orders.

"We just can’t do it. If we even attempt to do it, within a week or two I’ll have to file bankruptcy, I’ll have to shut down. There will be some drastic changes. We have to go back to how we were or we just can’t go back at all unfortunately," Call said.

She said she hopes to try and get the restaurants up and open by the end of July or beginning of August.

For guidance on reopening restaurants for dining indoors