Boston Pizza was beginning to fill just prior to Monday's lunch hour. The general manager said he expects all available tables to be filled. (Trevor Redden/paNOW Staff)

By Trevor Redden

Food and Fitness

Restaurants, gyms see more activity in P.A. with phase three of province’s re-open plan

Jun 8, 2020 | 12:47 PM

Monday marks another step toward normalcy in Saskatchewan, as phase three of the Re-Open Saskatchewan plan begins.

Among the businesses now able to operate are dine-in restaurants at 50 per cent capacity, and gyms and other fitness facilities.

Sean Dieno, general manager of Boston Pizza in Prince Albert, said he is looking forward to seeing a buzz in the restaurant again.

“[I’m feeling] excitement, anxiety, kind of just nervous for how everything is going to go. At the end of the day, it’s really exciting that we’re finally able to open up, see customers again, and have more staff on and be able to see some familiar faces,” Dieno said.

Like all other restaurants, Boston Pizza will be running at 50 per cent capacity, but Dieno anticipates all the available tables will be full. Unfortunately, they may not be able to utilize the added capacity of the patio until the weather starts to cooperate more.

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He said there is also a system in place for dealing with lineups.

“We’ll accommodate the best we can. If there’s lineups, we have systems to text people when a table is available. If they’re patient with us, we’ll definitely be able to accommodate them,” Dieno said.

While reopening to the public is a welcome step, Dieno acknowledged the pandemic shutdown was not as negative as anticipated.

“We started scheduling very minimal [staff], not really anticipating a lot happen. It totally took us by storm, there were a lot of days where we didn’t have enough people on so we brought people back,” Dieno said. He added staff anticipate strong takeout and delivery sales to maintain as people slowly get comfortable with returning to restaurants.

At the gym

Whitney Kapacila, co-owner and manager at Pure Athletics, compared today’s reopening to one of the most magical days of the year.

“It felt like Christmas morning. I was just so excited to just see everybody again,” Kapacila said. “We’ve really missed everyone. Our community is like a giant family so it’s been tough to not see everyone for a few months.”

Josh and Whitney Kapacila, co-owners of Pure Athletics, have been busy preparing their gym for today’s reopening. Staff and clients alike were busy cleaning after a Monday morning crossfit class. (Trevor Redden/paNOW Staff)

New social distance regulations in place at Pure Athletics. (submitted photo/Whitney Kapacila

The crossfit gym had to implement some changes to comply with restrictions, including limiting class sizes to 10 people, and allowing time for proper sanitation between classes.

Kapacila said it’s taken many hours to plan and prepare for today, but it is all worth it.

“We started with the back end organization [of digesting the regulations and making a plan] the first week, and the last week has been in the gym, spending time laying everything out, marking the floors, moving the equipment,” Kapacila said.

“We’ve sanitized every single thing inside the gym top to bottom.”

During the shutdown, Pure Athletics began offering at-home workout videos to stay engaged with clients, and that is something they intend to continue moving forward even though the doors are now open. Kapacila acknowledged people have different circumstances, and not everybody can come to the gym yet.

“It was very important to us because we want to be able to support everyone with whatever situation they’re in and offer some type of program for them to be able to continue on with our fitness. As we know, our health and wellness is such an important thing,” Kapacila said.

Other businesses allowed to open today included child care facilities, churches, and other personal care services including tattoo artists and manicurists.

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trevor.redden@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Trevor_Redden