ottawa foodies

Hi all, has anyone been to any restaurants / take out food spots or grocery stores that aren't taking covid seriously?

For me it's definitely the Al Noor bakery. None of the the employees cooking the food were wearing masks, none of the customers were wearing masks and the guy at with a desk selling cell phones wasn't wearing a mask.

I live downtown and it looks like a lot of patio tables are much closer than six feet apart.

The plexiglass shields at the cashes in the Metcalfe Street Farm Boy are oddly set up. There is no opening at the bottom of the plexiglass to pass your money or bank card. You basically have to stand at one end of the shield to make payment so you are face to face with the cashier as if there was no plexiglass. The cashiers weren't even wearing masks or gloves for the longest time although they are now wearing masks.

There are a few patios on Preston set up with tables 2 metres apart, but they don't seem to understand (or care) that it's the people in the chairs that need to be separated.

I could be wrong, but an reasonably sure if the people eating together need to be social distanced, that's on them to request. The restaurant is allowed to assume people sitting down to eat together are already 'together', bubbled, or on a really freaky high risk bug chaser date.

(Viral bug chasers are a thing. Google at own risk.)

AD I noticed this too. A big one for me was Pub Italia, I walked by yesterday and the tables themselves didn't even look 2 meters apart and, as you said, once people were in the chairs they absolutely weren't 2 meters from diners at other tables... Honestly the distance didn't look any farther than pre covid times. And I noticed a couple other places with patios kinda like this, but none of them were as bad.

I braved the market last night to pick up an order from the King Eddy. Love the joint. Great people, good food. But two of their staff had their masks under their nose or under their chin, handling both food and customers. I was there for around 15 minutes and saw only a handful of masks on the dozens and dozens of groups of people walking by. While their tables were spaced quite far apart, there were people walking right along the fenceline, less than a foot from diners. I know it can't be helped, but with nobody wearing masks, it made me nervous. Maybe I'm just old and paranoid and being overcareful.

As much as I want to support local businesses, I'm probably just better off staying home and making food myself.

Shawarma Station at Bank and Hunt Club. Was there today and all 4 employees I saw were not wearing masks. Delicious pies though.

Nicastros in the market need to do something in the way of crowd control. There were at least 30 people in the shop yesterday when I went there. Everyone was wearing a mask, but people were leaning in front of others to get items, or were just standing around chatting with others, not remotely attempting to keep their distance from others, or allowing others to move freely. They were lined up 6 deep at the sandwich station, and after they got their sandwich, they would not move out of the way to allow the next in line to order.

The problem is with the covidiots that shop at that store. I shop there on a weekly basis and even though they have prominent direction arrows the shoppers completely ignore them and go any which way anyways. I know shoppers seem to be doing that everywhere these days but I notice it more at La Bottega because the store is small. When I went there at the end of last week people in line were lined up as if there was no pandemic maybe less than a foot away from each other.

Businesses have a responsibility to monitor what is happening in their stores. I went to Parma Ravioli today and one person was ensuring everyone entering the store would wash their hands. Then they were monitoring the clients in the store.

Any store not doing anything about safety simply don’t get my business. It’s just not worth it.

Jim Watson was interviewed on CTV Ottawa Morning this morning to talk about the pandemic in Ottawa. He mentioned that if anyone sees people not respecting the social distancing rules they can call 311. Might be worth a shot?

I'm posting a shout-out to a place that was taking everything very seriously.

Banditos on bank street. Went there a Friday night a few weeks back. Saw a group of no-mask young men rejected from entry as they didn't have masks. All tables were spaced out alot. Every staff member was wearing a mask, including kitchen staff, at all times. Staff members tried to always keep 2m distance.

They are taking it real seriously, so kudos to them.