Steve DiFillippo, the owner of the popular Davio’s restaurant chain and member of Governor Charlie Baker's new Reopening Advisory Board, said he hopes that restaurants in Massachusetts will be able to reopen in June in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“As soon as we start seeing less people in hospitals, less people in the ICU, then I think we will feel like we are in a safer place,” Davios told Emily Rooney on WGBH New’s Greater Boston Thursday night. “I think it is probably going to be June."
DiFillippo believes that the restaurant industry’s expectations for health and cleanliness have already put them in a good position in a post-coronavirus world.
“We actually already do everything right, I think," he said. "When you come to a restaurant, we already have a health department, we already have a clean environment. When was the last time you went to the bank and you saw them wiping down the counter? At restaurants, we are good at that."
While DiFillippo does not think that many changes will have to be made to accommodate new health requirements, he does think that all restaurant staff members from the cooks to the hosts and hostess, will now have to wear masks for the foreseeable future.
“We are all going to have to have masks on until there is a vaccine,” he said.
DiFillippo told Rooney that when the time to reopen comes, he will slowly reopen one restaurant at a time so he can oversee them.
“I want to be there personally at each one. I want to make sure we get it right,” he said.
