SUSSEX CO., Del. - Delaware restaurants can now welcome 10 people at a table outdoor dining. Some resort town restaurants are happy for the increase, but others say lifting indoor restrictions is what is really needed.
Cooter Brown's in Rehoboth has a huge patio for outdoor dining, and they say having 10 people per table is a huge win.
"It's super exciting, you know the servers get to make good money, the town of Rehoboth is making money, the liquor is going, it's gonna be family oriented, so it's a awesome setting for everyone," said Alexis Giordano, a server at Cooter Brown's.
Down the road at The Starboard in Dewey, they are still well below where they want to be.
Owner Steve Montgomery said, "Our capacity is 700 people at a place like this. We can only seat 250, so we're stuck at 250 people. We are all hoping to get back to standing consumption, you know, people get vaccinated, get the indoors filled, that will help us because it's just that many more butts in seats."
But Montgomery says every bit helps, "Everything about this whole thing is steps, taking steps to getting back to normal. If I had a criticism, I'd say we need to take steps faster and more of them, they can be small, we're all working together, we're all doing this, and so it's nice to take another step in the right direction."
The Delaware Restaurant Association says the pandemic has cost Delaware restaurants $1.2 billion in lost revenue as of the end of March. President and CEO Carrie Leishman says they need more than an increase on outdoor party sizes.
"We've been fighting for 14 months for inches for the DE restaurant industry, and to go to only 10 people per table outside, assort of a reason, or the only thing the Governor was reducing the restrictions on, we don't feel he went far enough," she said.
With the summer sun bringing more customers to town, restaurants hope this change will be enough to keep them going until restrictions are loosened indoors as well.