Restaurants/ cafes & 'no households mixing indoors'

[NotAKaren]

So 'no households mixing indoors' for is clearly not being adhered to in restaurants and cafes not sure about pubs. Although not sure how they can be expected to police this TBH. If this continues are we heading for trouble in January?

Round here, before lockdown, I'd say that in the cafes we went to it looked like people were sticking to their bubbles: couples, families with kids, etc. We are still tier 3 so now the cafes aren't even open

The café next to work said they didn't know that was the rule. We got take out because although we work together (academic staff at uni) we cannot socialise together but wanted to chat about work stuff as finding time to do this is tricky just now. I'm now confused about whether we can legitimately sit down in the café as it is for work?

Guess it's safer to go back to office and sit across the room with windows open.

Where I am - city in South East - I haven't come across anyone asking questions about households mixing etc when booking tables.

How on earth would you know by looking? I am having a business dinner next week with three colleagues from different households. No rule breaking occurring.

My colleague has gone to London for the weekend with her friends. We are teachers in a Tier 3 area and our school has shut due to outbreaks.

Hospitality will just be relying on people to follow the rules of their tier. Some people will and some people won’t.

I imagine OP's DD would be out of a job if customers stopped going to the cafe, because ultimately, who likes to go to a cafe alone. Noble of the DD to care so much about other people's welfare first, I suppose. Except not the mental health of those who might need some social contact, or her boss. Boss' welfare (as in viability of his/her business) comes after that of customers who have made their own decisions as adults. What a messy situation people are forced into.

I was out in Soho last night doing late night Xmas shopping and from my interested glances into restaurants I didn’t see anything that struck me as obvious rule breaking. But crucially they’d shut lots of smaller streets and put tables outside, so anyone who wanted to have a meal with friends had an easy and legal way of doing so, and restaurants had something to offer that didn’t force them to turn custom away.

@YesThisIsMe

I was out in Soho last night doing late night Xmas shopping and from my interested glances into restaurants I didn’t see anything that struck me as obvious rule breaking. But crucially they’d shut lots of smaller streets and put tables outside, so anyone who wanted to have a meal with friends had an easy and legal way of doing so, and restaurants had something to offer that didn’t force them to turn custom away.

Was it busy? Just curious.

It wasn’t as busy as a normal Friday evening in December but it was fairly bustling yes. Some restaurants were shut though (especially chains and places which probably rely on theatre-going trade), which probably produced additional trade for the open places.

The only places which had queues were JD Sports which was mad (I think they’d kicked people out or something) and a few tiny Instagrammable Chinese places.

Soho backstreets noticeably busier than Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, no queue whatsoever in TCR Argos or Forbidden Planet or John Lewis for example but I had to queue (briefly) to get into tiny specialist off-licence to get DFIL’s whisky.

Went out for my birthday with 2 friends in London. One is in my 'bubble', the other one is not. In the end we ate inside as it was just too cold outside. No member of staff checked if we were one household, beyond taking one of our phone number and temperature check for each of us.

As someone posted above you could have a 'business lunch' and mix with several people...as if Covid can make a difference between whether you are with a colleague or a friend...which makes a mockery of the whole thing so I am done respected nonsensical rules and I think I am not the only one.

We are in Tier 2.

I have just got back from coffee with three friends (4 households total) at a cafe. Two of us stayed on for a bacon butty lunch.

The cafe was really busy all the time we wrre there, with a constsnt queue to the outdoor kiosk from where they were serving for all their outdoor seating. In the nearly three hours we were there, we counted 5 couples only going indoors.

Signs up saying single households/ support bubbles only indoors and everyone was obeying.

So it is not true that everyone is mixing bubbles indoors. Not where I have been. I am sure across the country thst some are, some aren't. What we need is enough people to do the right thing to limit the spread enough to counteract the ones who don't bother.

We took our own chairs to ensure full social distancing (provided seating is picnic tables) but we are admittedly more cautious than many outdoors.

Yes good to hear soho is doing ok

Round here, pubs and restaurants are so quiet it’s mad.

Ate out this week with my boss. We are friends as well as colleagues and eat out often to discuss work as it's too busy in the day to chat. Possibly on shaky ground as we've come out of lockdown and into tier 2 from tier 1. However we've worked closely all through the pandemic including both lockdowns. If we catch it from each other it's unlikely be because we've eaten in the restaurant rather than getting a takeaway and taking it back to the workplace!

I should add I've stuck pretty closely to all the rules and wouldn't do this with someone I don't spend time with every day. I spend more time with colleagues than family in a job that we can't social distance in.