{"id":2455871,"date":"2020-03-16T23:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=322755"},"modified":"2020-03-16T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T05:15:00","slug":"restaurant-closure-order-latest-blow-to-aspen-life-some-plan-to-keep-take-out-and-delivery-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/restaurant-closure-order-latest-blow-to-aspen-life-some-plan-to-keep-take-out-and-delivery-option\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant closure order latest blow to Aspen life; some plan to keep take-out and delivery option"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Diners fill the patio at White House Tavern early Monday evening. Gov. Jared Polis issued an order Monday, which takes effect 8 a.m. Tuesday, prohibiting dine-in service at bars and restaurants and the closure of theaters, casinos and gyms.<\/strong>
Rick Carroll\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

It took a governor\u2019s order Monday to shut down what had become a shrinking number of Aspen restaurants with dine-in service, another blow to the local economy as fallout from the global coronavirus crisis continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time I find it necessary to implement emergency measures to close down all bars, restaurants, theaters, gymnasiums and casinos in Colorado in an effort to protect and preserve the public health,\u201d read Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 statewide public health order, which takes effect at 8 a.m. Tuesday and is effective for 30 days.<\/p>\n

Restaurants and bars are allowed to provide take-out service while the order is in effect.<\/p>\n

Multiple downtown restaurants already had closed by the time Polis delivered his order at a 4 p.m. news conference.<\/p>\n

From such corporate names as Starbucks to the locally owned New York Pizza and Campo de Fiori, a number of food-service establishments in downtown Aspen already had called it a season because of the coronavirus and pleas from public health officials to engage in social distancing to stem the disease\u2019s spread.<\/p>\n

Yet, some restaurants remained open where folks were either bellied up to the bar or seated at the tables early Monday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our last night,\u201d Red Onion server Mikey Wechsler said between taking orders. \u201cWe already had a company email stating that we would not be open before his (Polis\u2019) announcement, so now it\u2019s a moot point.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House Tavern\u2019s patio was its usual busy self around 5:30 p.m., its tables filled with diners. That will be a scene of the past until at least mid-April, but the restaurant will keep its take-out service going.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be there for the community as much as we can,\u201d said Avery Colgan, general manager.<\/p>\n

Food-delivery service A La Car planned to remain open as long as its participating restaurants were taking pick-up orders, said owner Tom Engelman. A La Car can be reached at 970-544-3663 and orders also can be placed at orderfoodaspen.com.<\/p>\n

With $17.3 million in sales, Aspen\u2019s restaurant and bar industry accounted for 18% of all retail sales here in January, according to a report issued by the city\u2019s Finance Department on Friday. For all of 2019, the industry recorded $138.9 million in sales in Aspen.<\/p>\n

In Snowmass, a few restaurant owners said they weren\u2019t surprised by Polis\u2019 order.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could see it coming with everything that\u2019s happening, we just didn\u2019t expect it to happen so quickly,\u201d Christine Newcomb, co-owner of Big Hoss Grill on the Village Mall, said Monday night. \u201cBut I guess that\u2019s how everything seems to be unfolding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newcomb said the grill will shut down all of its operations until early June and while it is unfortunate her employees are out of work a month early, she understands why the governor\u2019s order is necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of extra food everyone is taking home, so we\u2019re really taking care of each other,\u201d Newcomb said. \u201cHopefully we can look back on this and say, \u2018It\u2019s not as serious as it could have been,\u2019 instead of saying, \u2018Wow, that was bad, we should have done more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But while some restaurants like Big Hoss are shutting down, others like Taster\u2019s Pizza at the Snowmass Village Center will stay open and operate as carry out and all-day delivery only.<\/p>\n

Heather Huber and Stacy Forster, managing partners of Taster\u2019s, said they plan to stay open until they are ordered to shut down and may even extend their delivery service to Aspen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cheesy to say, but we do love this community and think it\u2019s important to keep some normalcy,\u201d Huber said. \u201cPeople need food so we plan to keep going as long as we\u2019re allowed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

rcarrolll@aspentimes.com<\/a> and mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diners fill the patio at White House Tavern early Monday evening. Gov. Jared Polis issued an order Monday, which takes effect 8 a.m. Tuesday, prohibiting dine-in service at bars and restaurants and the closure of theaters, casinos and gyms.Rick Carroll\/The Aspen Times It took a governor\u2019s order Monday to shut down what had become a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 10:21:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}