At Rob's BBQ, Preparations Underway For Phase 1 Reopening
DAVIE (CBSMiami) – Rob's BBQ in Davie is a well-known spot for ribs and barbecue in Broward and they've been busy producing takeout during the COVID-19 shutdown.
Owner Rob Scuby is working hard to gear up for Monday's phase one reopening of non-essential businesses across Broward and Miami-Dade counties. In preparation, Scruby asked employees to do deep cleaning in the dining areas and had a company steam clean the kitchen.
"We're going to take every single precaution that is known and make sure that we're spreading it throughout our operation," he said.
Broward and Miami-Dade counties are putting a high premium on persistent and frequent cleaning of restaurants during operating hours and after hours every day. Scruby says they've been doing that for years and will continue to do so.
"We're gonna be very obvious about it. We want people to see us doing it in front of them, cleaning and continuing to clean," he said. "Our customers are like family to us so we want to treat them like family. We want to make sure we're going the extra mile."
In fact, in guidelines released Thursday, Broward County is ordering restaurants to deep clean "at least once very twenty-four hours." Scruby believes that will help build customer confidence.
Scruby is taking lots of precautions throughout his restaurant, like removing stools for individual guests near the cash register.
South Florida restaurants can open with 50 percent capacity indoors next Monday. To meet the requirement and accommodate proper distancing of tables, Rob's BBQ will stagger their tables, reducing capacity inside from 250 people to 125. They're also doing away with their self-serve salad bar to follow county guidelines.
"We are not gonna have a salad bar for a while," Scruby said. "We may eliminate that altogether."
Rob's printed off a large amount of single-use menus and they're awaiting a shipment of paper plates and plastic silverware.
"Paper plates, silverware and all that, that's a little bit expensive relative to washing dishes and bringing them back out, but that's ok," he said. "We want people to feel ok about what they're eating off of."
Scruby is trying to follow all the county rules to reopen. They'll have employees enforce proper social distancing and Scruby said his kitchen workers already stay far apart because of the nature of the work they do. He also plans to put up two large tents with side panels in the parking lot for extra seating and to protect against the often inclement South Florida summer weather.
Rob's BBQ employs 50 people. Scruby hopes to bring two-thirds of them back to work next week. Overall, it will be an adjustment for his workers and his customers, Scruby said, as it will be at all South Florida restaurants. He hopes everyone follows the rules.
"We're all depending on each other because we want this thing to end," Scruby said. "We don't want to restart the process. We all need to be careful and smart."
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