Increased Capacity Starts Right Before Valentine's Day Weekend

DELAWARE - Increased capacity in Delaware, just in time for Valentine's Day.  Many businesses are feeling the love and appreciation for a higher capacity, but some businesses are still feeling a little stuck. This has been a long time coming for restaurants, with a higher capacity means more tables and more service, and SoDel Concepts says the timing of the increase comes at a good time. "There's a little glimmer of hope at the end of a dark tunnel," said Scott Kammerer, President of SoDel Concepts A light shining bright as SoDel Concepts says its restaurants can almost double the number of tables, while still keeping a safe social distance. But the industry is not trying to leave those who do not want to come out and dine in the dust, keeping many options still on the table.  Kammerer said, "So the Valentine's dinner, we're doing a virtual dinner in our restaurants where you can go curbside contact less pickup the food and take it home and enjoy it with a little bit of a connection to the chefs and other people." For other places like Parsell Funeral homes, the increase sounds good on paper, but there's not enough room to add any more seats or people. The funeral home says it's going to continue doing virtual ceremonies. Andrew Parsell, Director and Vice President of Parsell Funeral Homes said, "Even as the limitations of number of people in attendance opens up, there's still going to be people who are infected or at high risk, that still need those virtual options as well."  Others are taking things a little slower. "And have increased our seating appropriately for Terms of Endearment which comes up at the end of the month and then for our production of Guys and Dolls in March, we'll see how things are going," said Wesley Paulson with Clear Space Theatre The theatre says it can have up to 100 seats now. As for the restaurant industry again they say consumer confidence is a big hurdle.  SoDel Concepts says it recently sent a survey to 25,000 people, 90% of people who answered say they are ready to start dining at restaurants again thanks to vaccines and case rates