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Restaurants may be reopening as soon as next week, but the dining experience in Miami is going to be completely different. More space between tables is one of the biggest changes we’ll likely see, but restaurants such as Pubbelly Sushi are leading the charge on showing us what that might actually look like.
The South Florida chain is installing semi-private pods across its four restaurants—Dadeland, Aventura, Brickell and Miami Beach—ahead of its tentative reopening on Monday, May 18. It’s a significant investment the company hopes will put its guests at ease when dining in. "If this is our ‘new normal,’ and that means going the extra mile to help make our guests feel safe by creating intimate dining pods, then we are ready to embrace it," says chef and Pubbelly founding partner José Mendin.
The pods themselves appear to be more partitions than enclosures, but they seem to adequately address the county’s guidelines for socially distant dining—where tables must be six-feet apart and no more than four people can be seated at one table unless it’s members of the same household, in which case it can be a group of six.
It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing restaurant decor we’ve seen, but it’s an efficient solution to the problem that isolating from your fellow diners presents in a relatively small space. Plus, it’s cozy and, for indecisive eaters, will keep you from ogling your neighbor’s dish.
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