New Jersey restaurants gearing up for indoor dining resuming Friday

FOX 29's Dave Schratwieser spoke with restaurant owners.

NEW JERSEY - New Jersey restaurants statewide will be permitted to resume indoor dining at a limited capacity beginning Friday and business owners are thrilled.

The tables were empty at Ponzio's in Cherry Hill Thursday night, but by morning that will all change when indoor dining is finally back in South Jersey.

“We're excited. We've taken all the precautions we needed to take. We're following the guidelines,” Nick Fifis said.

The pastry counter is stocked up and the seating is all set for 25 percent capacity at the famous Route 70 diner. Plastic shields are in place and there’s a lot of hand sanitizer ready to go. Fire up the scrambled eggs and bacon, starting at 6:30 Friday morning it's on.

“Fortunately, we're a big restaurant so we have the ability to serve more people,” Fifis explained.

At Lamberti's Tutti Toscani off Brace Road, customers are excited. Tutti's has been surviving off takeout orders and outdoor dining for months. But now, the kitchen is fired up, the indoor tables are marked off and the staff and the customers are ready.

"Just having 25 percent of our guests coming back is very exciting. The staff's looking forward to it,” Annamaria Kinney Ferraro said.

Over in restaurant-friendly Collingswood, they had to scratch out a living with curbside pickup and most recently outdoor, tent dining. Indoor dining will start at Kitchen Consiglieri early next week as they gear up for post summer crowds to return.

“We're coming into the best weather months for outdoor dining so we feel that's still going to be strong for us,” the owner said.

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