ANN ARBOR, MI — Even as Washtenaw County has begun to lift masking and quarantine mandates in schools and many restaurants have reopened indoor seating, some Ann Arbor restaurants are still requiring dine-in patrons to show proof of vaccination before being seated.
Eateries like Bløm Meadworks, Miss Kim, Spencer, The Last Word and Vertex all require customers to show proof of vaccination before being allowed to dine in, and venues like The Ark have followed suit.
For Lauren Bloom, owner of Bløm Meadworks, at 100 S. Fourth Ave., the decision to require proof of vaccination to eat indoors was driven by a desire to reduce the burden on nearby hospitals and a sense of responsibility for patrons of the business.
“Part of sleeping well at night is for these past two years have been able to sleep hoping that nobody in that space contracted a fatal case,” Bloom said.
Bløm Meadworks currently requires a proof of vaccination to eat or drink inside, although unvaccinated customers can purchase drinks to-go or use one of the meadery’s outdoor warming huts. Children who are too young to be vaccinated can sit inside if the rest of their party is vaccinated, but are not allowed to take off their mask.
Bløm Meadworks first implemented the requirement in June 2021, when it first reopened. While Bloom said in an “ideal world” she would also require proof of a booster shot, she is worried it would hurt business.
“We’re trying to walk this line between being as safe as we can and not essentially putting ourselves in a shutdown position,” she said.
Staff at The Ark, at 316 S. Main St., said its vaccination policy, implemented in August 2021, is driven by guidance from a variety of local, state and national health organizations.
“A venue vaccination policy continues to be required by almost all of our artists, and preferred by the majority of our audience members, volunteers, and staff,” said Marianne James, the venue’s executive director, in an email to MLive.
The Ark currently has no exemptions to its policy, including showing a negative test or medical exemptions.
“Unfortunately, every policy choice we have to make in this pandemic environment includes some people and excludes others based on each person’s own circumstances, beliefs, and preferences,” James said. “There’s no way around that.”
Both Bløm Meadworks and Miss Kim, which implemented its policy in January 2022, allow those with proof of a medical exemption to vaccination to eat inside the restaurant. Miss Kim is located at 415 N. Fifth Ave.
Bloom said that while meadery staff would first direct them to outdoor seating, those with medical exemptions would ultimately be allowed to eat inside.
“Anybody who’s already seated in there is already under the assumption that everybody else in there is vaccinated,” Bloom said. “So we don’t want to give them false information about who is seated around them.”
Ji Hye Kim, owner of Miss Kim, said the Korean eatery has a more private area in which they would seat someone with a medical exemption, although all of its patrons so far have been vaccinated.
For Kim, the decision to implement a vaccination policy was driven out of concern for her staff and a lack of access heavy-duty air filters and comfortable outdoor seating.
“We are in a hospitality business ‚and we want people to have a good time when they’ve come to the restaurant and if the staff are very anxious to serve our guests, they’re less likely to provide really good hospitable service,” Kim said. “…There’s a health risk from COVID, but there is also risk to mental health.”
Miss Kim is set to reassess the policy at the end of February, Kim said. The policy was originally implemented after many discussions with staff.
“I think what I really want to stress is that we’re not here to really talk about politics, or even science or medicine facts,” Kim said. “I’m mostly primarily concerned about the staff’s well-being and how that affects the service to our guests.”
But other restaurants have stuck to policies passed down by the state government, foregoing masking and vaccination policies. Paris Tsourdalakis, general manager at The Brown Jug, said it was “unnecessary” to ask for proof of vaccination, since most of the bar’s patrons attend the University of Michigan, which requires students to be vaccinated.
“If we were a bar on Main Street or in a different area that doesn’t get as many students, we would definitely need to approach that in a different way,” Tsourdalakis said, adding that younger populations are also less vulnerable to coronavirus. “We don’t have the crowd that will be threatened by COVID as much at the young age.”
Both Kim and Bloom stressed their policies are temporary and driven by a variety of factors, including case numbers, staff mental health and financial burdens.
“It’s a lot more complex than just vaccine, no vaccine issue,” Kim said. “We’re not taking a political stance.”
Bloom echoed the sentiment, saying that the meadery is “adapting to the situation.”
“I think I always thought of the vaccine from the beginning as a safety measure to reduce hospitalizations, to reduce deaths, but not to eliminate spread completely,” Bloom said. “I think it’s one more thing that we can do in our space to reduce the amount of spread.”
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