OHIO, USA — Governor DeWine recently assembled a group of restaurant owners and operators, among many others, to help plan for and guide the gradual reopening of restaurants in Ohio.
As Managing Partner of Red Steakhouse in Downtown and Pinecrest, Gregg S. Levy is one of those people. He brings to the table not just ownership experience, but also the expertise that comes from his others careers as a real estate developer, commercial property owner and business and real estate attorney.
As he describes it, the group comprises 40 participants including restaurant owners and operators, health officials and various municipality workers. The task is to come up with best practices that will balance the health concerns of employees and customers while making way for restaurants to reopen in some capacity.
Members looked to other states and countries to see what was and was not effective, Levy says, while adding that the process is very fluid and challenging.
“The difficulty of all this is that it’s all based on health information that is changing by the day,” he says. “What was relevant three days ago might not be relevant today.”
While Levy is unable to share specific recommendations from him personally or the group as a whole, he did share that the panel’s proposals have been delivered.
“I’m happy to say that we were able to give our recommendations to them today,” he says, adding that the Governor might act upon those guidelines as soon as this week.
“It’s been a great process and great exchange of ideas,” Levy reports. “While we’re trying to give a general recommendation, it’s not one-size-fits-all; there is no perfect solution. At the end of the day we’re relying on the owners, the operators and mostly the public to police themselves.”