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Indoor dining may be on the brink of yet another shutdown in NYC, but one restaurant is attempting to keep it going for as long as humanly possible thanks to its latest eyebrow-raising menu addition: COVID-19 tests.
Kicking off tomorrow, November 24th, restaurant–slash–vino venue City Winery is rolling out a pilot program that will require all patrons to complete a rapid $50 COVID-19 test in order to dine indoors on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, in an effort to create a “100% COVID-tested environment,” according to the team’s announcement on Instagram. (Employees will also be tested daily upon arrival.)
City Winery will be using antigen tests with BD Veritor analyzers—said to yield 99-percent accuracy for negative results and 90-percent for positive—with services provided by Accurex Diagnostic Services. Guests will have to prepay the $50 test surcharge via Resy in order to make a reservation. Then, upon arrival, they will receive a mandatory wellness check and the antigen test, and then wait outside for 10-15 minutes with a glass of bubbly in hand while their results process. If results are negative, masked customers are welcome to enter for a socially distanced meal. If positive, they will not be permitted to enter, and their test will be sent to and validated by a partnered CLIA lab within 24 hours.
“We believe that hospitality is all about making our customers comfortable and given the pandemic, that starts with feeling safe,” the team wrote on Instagram. The program will not be employed Thursdays through Mondays—coronavirus skips weekends, apparently—during which the venue will instead continue their regular health-and-safety routine of temperature checks, frequent sanitization, mask requirements, and social distancing.
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