HOLLYWOOD (CNS) - Iconic Hollywood restaurant Musso & Frank Grill will reopen today, more than three months after closing due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The restaurant at 6667 Hollywood Blvd. closed following a March 15 order from Mayor Eric Garcetti banning restaurants and bars from serving food and alcohol.
“We are incredibly excited to see and engage with our friends again and to safely serve them after the challenges we have all faced over the past three months,'' said Mark Echeverria, the restaurant's chief operating officer and chief financial officer and a fourth-generation member of the family of owners. “Our managers have been working incredibly hard during this entire period to develop solid safety protocols, which will be implemented on our first day back.''
The restaurant will offer its full menu and the only changes customers will see “are those that ensure the health and safety of everyone who walks through our doors,'' Echeverria said.
The health and safety initiatives being undertaken at the restaurant include:
-- Before guests arrive, they will be asked to check themselves for COVID-19 symptoms. If they display any symptoms, they will be asked to go home;
-- In the parking lot, Musso & Frank will have an assisted parking system, not a traditional valet. An employee will help in guiding customers where to park but will not take possession of a customer's car unless asked to do so;
-- A guest who enters the restaurant through the front door on Hollywood Boulevard can expect a host to provide help checking in while maintaining physical distance, and offering each bare-faced guest a single-use face covering. Each guest will have ready access to a hand sanitizer station;
-- A manager will greet each customer at the back entrance from the Cherokee Avenue parking lot and provide a single-use face covering to any bare-faced guest. Each customer will find a hand sanitizer station at the back entrance;
-- Customers will only be seated at every other booth in the Old Room, and at every other booth and at tables placed six-feet apart in the New Room;
-- No groups larger than six people will be seated or served;
-- A maximum of 60% of the restaurant's dining capacity will be used;
-- In addition to stations at the front and back entrances, there will be hand sanitizer stations throughout the restaurant;
-- Managers will be stationed at both entryway doors to ensure a measured flow of people and to make certain they maintain a distance of sixfeet from each other;
-- Employees will have to complete daily online questionnaires to ensure their health is up to par -- before they arrive at the restaurant; employees will be temperature-tested once they arrive;
-- Only customers wearing masks will be permitted to enter the restaurant and will be asked to wear them when away from their tables;
-- Server assistants will lay out table settings (silverware, glasses, etc.) only after each party has been seated;
-- Only single-use menus printed daily will be utilized. The menus can be taken home by customers as souvenirs, or will be discarded;
-- Bathrooms will be deep-cleaned and sanitized every 30 minutes; social distancing will be observed in both bathrooms;
-- Musso & Frank's air conditioning filters have been retrofitted to include hospital-grade filtration.
The restaurant will have modified hours of operation and customers must make online reservations. Reservations can be made at mussoandfrank.com/reservations.
Musso & Frank Grill is Hollywood's oldest restaurant, opening in 1919. It has long attracted an entertainment industry clientele, including Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson and The Rolling Stones.
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