One of my favorite things is getting out to a bar and having a good drink with friends and colleagues, it's a great way to loosen up at the end of the day. and the pandemic certainly has had its tolls on bars across the state. many shutting down early on due to restrictions put in place. That is until local municipalities amended their coding and zoning to allow bars to open as restaurants if they could show that 51% of their revenue came from food sales.


This was a life saver for many establishments, Bar owners scrambled to either upgrade their kitchens or seek out partnerships with food trucks to help give them the kitchen they didn't have in order to keep from having to do any kind of spending on their own operations.

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Now I don't know about you but generally speaking I don't go to a bar because they offer 5 star Zagat rated meals, I go there to drink and socialize, and for many bar owners getting into the restaurant business is generally something they weren't looking for. and the burden was high, It costs a lot to upgrade a bar and get the kitchen up to snuff if you even have one. the biggest thing is making sure you have a grease trap, because you can't just send that stuff down the drain. and of course other items like multi vat sinks that can handle washing, rinsing and sanitizing.

While many bars want to continue to serve food, it's really up to TABC and officials here in Amarillo to see that this continues on, especially when the old regulations are put back into place. I still think many places are gonna offer food and honestly what we have gotten since has been a large upgrade over what used to be a step above nuked microwave offerings but be prepared for that to make a return here.

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