Everything You Need To Know About The Return Of Indoor Dining

While personal comfort levels are sure to factor in to your decision to dine indoors, there's also an ethical stance to be considered. Restaurateurs certainly want you back, but what protections (or lack thereof) are there for the restaurant workers? The industry, as most of us well know, has always left a gap in pay and benefits for restaurant staff, many of whom could be undocumented and left without any safety net if they get sick. 

As Ryan Sutton, Eater's chief critic recently said, "The fact that there isn’t a vaccine isn’t even the biggest reason I won’t dine out indoors; it’s that our country has institutionalized a culture of disrespect for restaurant workers through weak regulations and insufficient social welfare support. How is it that you can get kicked out of an empty museum — with as much square footage as Wayne Manor — for taking off your mask but you can sit in a small restaurant for two hours without a face covering while ordering vodka sodas from your waiter who’s scared for their life?"

He continued, "As diners we set examples, and simply the act of engaging in a demonstrably dangerous and non-essential economic transaction where the privileged party is protected and the vulnerable party is exposed perpetuates the same structural inequities that made this industry so problematic in the first place."