KAPA‘A — The restaurant Olympic Cafe will be reopening its doors after being shut down because the staff weren’t wearing masks on the job and has reopened today.
KAPA‘A — The restaurant Olympic Cafe will be reopening its doors after being shut down because the staff weren’t wearing masks on the job and has reopened today.
The state Department of Health announced the cafe was closed Monday, after a Department of Health Food Safety Branch inspector responded to complaints about the establishment’s violations of mask use requirements. A red placard was issued as a result of investigations conducted on May 4 and May 10 when an inspector observed restaurant staff working without masks on both occasions.
A follow-up inspection Thursday confirmed the restaurant corrected the violation and the establishment was issued a green placard and allowed to reopen.
Olympic Cafe owner Troy Trujillo he didn’t understand some of the pandemic-related rules the Department of Health has in place for restaurants, and that led to the three-day shut-down.
“We had to take out a bunch of chairs, we had to take out a bunch of tables,” Trujilo said. “And I mean, it’s not the only thing I wasn’t doing. 100% was we weren’t social distancing properly, and we weren’t masking properly.”
Since Monday, the restaurant has been thoroughly cleaned. Chairs and tables have been rearranged to create enough social distancing to come into compliance with Centers for Disease Control and state Health Department guidelines.
“We (also) used three days because we’re so understaffed that we gave everyone some time off,” Trujillo said.
Opening today, Trujillo said he’s expecting business to be a bit slow, but said the weekend should bring things back to normal.
“You know, that’s kind of the flow of how things work,” Trujillo said.
