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Owner Larry Mongo and Quentin Tarantino at the club.
Larry Mongo of Cafe D'Mongo's Speakeasy in downtown Detroit is trying, like other bar owners, to imagine life once the booze starts pouring again. His joint on Griswold Street has served notables who inckude Quentin Tarantino and Ryan Gosling.
He turning to his staff for input, and asking customers on Facebook questions like:
Should we require everybody to have mask and gloves while moving about in a Club and what should happen if a person refuses to have their temperature taken and insists on coming in? How do we handle it?
One response:
Masks and gloves are no different than a dress code at a club. And the "era" of YOUR bar actually makes a dress code with masks and gloves a "branding" point."
Another wrote: Your club, your rules. If they don’t want to do what you require at the door...BYE
Whatever he figures out, ultimately he says he won't open until experts say OK.
"I’m waiting for their response," Mongo told Deadline Detroit. "I really respect the fact that our governor is leaning toward scientific opinions rather than political ones."
"I'll open, not (with) profit in mind at first," he says. "I'm opening with people's health in mind. I’m discussing it a lot with people who work here. What do they want?"
He says he won't put his employees in any situation he wouldn't put himself in.
"My wife has underlying problems. I’m 70 years old and black. There's already two strikes. I could be at home and have people on the front line. But if they're there, I'll be there."
Until mid-March, when the bar closed because of the virus, Mongo operated Thursday through Sunday.
When he returnss, he says he plans to ease back into that schedule, first operating just on Friday and Saturday. "Our reopening might have to be a crawl," he says.
"I really think you might see most of the downtown bars first opening Thursday through Saturday to try and get a feel for things," he said.
