Philadelphia eases restrictions on restaurant capacity, table limits

Philadelphia relaxed some of its restrictions on indoor and outdoor dining on Friday, including increased capacity and new table allowance. The modest rollback does not impact the enforcement of masking and social distancing.

Philadelphia restaurants can now fill indoor dining rooms to 50% capacity, according to city officials. Restaurants with city-approved enhanced ventilation can bump capacity to 75%. 

In addition to increased capacity, the number of people permitted per table indoors will bump from four to six and party members can be from different households. Meanwhile, outdoor parties can increase to include ten people. 

MORE: Philadelphia expands indoor dining capacities, outdoor table, allow indoor catered events seating May 7

Indoor catered events with 75 people or less can resume on Friday. 

While Philadelphia has maintained improved COVID-19 statistics, the city has no plans to allow capacity restrictions to expire with the rest of Pennsylvania on Memorial Day. Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, who has lead Philadelphia's pandemic response, said his department is reviewing Pennsylvania and New Jersey's plans.

"We’re going to review New Jersey policy and Pennsylvania policy and we’ll consider our local policy in light of that. We’ll announce that later," stated Philadelphia’s Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley. "It’s good to see this particular wave receding, but we are still vulnerable right now to future waves of the epidemic." 

Meanwhile, the latest data from the Philadelphia Health Department shows more than 545,000 residents are fully vaccinated from COVID-19 and nearly 250,000 have received at least one dose. Philadelphia, with a population of around 1.5M people, is hoping to innoculate 70% of adults during the summer.

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