[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]
How many tables and seats can make a menu or venue sustainable?
Take the theater or ballet: Can you really function with people every three or four seats?
And restaurants: with only half the tables?
And bar and brew pubs: are you kidding me?
Is it even possible to do this?
Now think.
What if we all wore masks, good masks, and seasonably, or all the time?
Could it be every three seats, or every other seat?
“Rigid” Theatre Seating: 6 feet apart.
“Clump” Seating: In natural “clumps,” approximately 6”. Pretty disastrous, unless you can cheat the distance and fill more seats (see near empty rows 5, 7, and 8.)
Could the restaurants be three-quarters rather than half full?
Would this make a difference?
What would this mean for the life of regular people?
Or, would we have the top end gravitate to negative-pressure rooms and be served by vaccinated and tested waitstaff for their “regular” dining?
Food carts might work, but a normal restaurant? With normal rent?
We will adapt: we will make many adaptations, but in the end, the question is not, ‘will there be a plate half empty or half full’…but will there be a plate at all?
Nifty architectural figure courtesy of the amazing Pimp my Drawing site.
(I just gave him COVID “gear.”)