Not a whole lot will immediately change at her Forest Park brewpub now that the state has removed its COVID-19 constrictions, Katherine Valleau said midday Friday.
For the first time, a sign went up outside Exit Strategy Brewing saying, “Vaxed? Mask Is Optional.” But her business will keep its limited indoor capacity for a while, and its staff will keep wearing masks, she said.
The milestone day’s more profound impact came in the heads of Valleau and her co-owner, husband Chris .
“There’s a weight that is currently lifted off,” said the former fifth grade teacher. “We kind of woke up this morning, and we’re like, ‘OK, so we’ve made it this far. And we’ve done all the things that we need to do and we have followed every rule to the letter and then some.’ So yeah, today’s a big deal.”
Across Chicagoland it was like that: maybe not so obviously different on the outside — even at Wrigley Field, where the Cubs were allowed to sell all the seats in the ballpark for the first time since the 2019 season — but with that light at tunnel’s end at least starting to shine brighter now.
After a year of ever-readjusting rules and restrictions mandated by the coronavirus’s course through the population, a year marked by the terrible toll the disease took on families, on businesses and on our collective sense of ease in the world, Friday’s reopening day was the first time authorities removed attendance restrictions and social distancing requirements from businesses and personal gatherings.
“We are here to announce reopening day in Chicago,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at a morning appearance outside the steakhouse Gibson’s Italia. “Our city is back. We are poised to roar back.”
She urged Chicagoans who “masked up” and “vaxxed up” to “get up, get out of the house this summer and fully and safely enjoy the events in the best city on the planet.”
Even 10 days ahead of summer’s official start, the message was heard.
“I’m ready to enjoy life like it was before COVID-19,” said Jasmere Tate, a certified nursing assistant who was taking lakefront photos Friday on the Museum Campus, where, nearby, Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum prepared to celebrate reopening day with extended hours.
Tate, 26, said a highlight of the move into phase five reopening is to no longer have the face mask requirement.
Having 50% of eligible Illinoisans fully vaccinated — and an additional 10% with at least one of the necessary two shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — is tamping down the disease, health officials said, although they still warn of potential danger to the unvaccinated.
To boost the vaccination rates and better protect the population, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, at an event Friday in Rockford, again raised the possibility that the state, as Ohio has done, would hold a “vaccine lottery.”
Illinois has had some of its lowest COVID-19 counts since the pandemic began, an Illinois Department of Public Health news release said, including 366 new and probable cases of the coronavirus on Thursday and a seven-day statewide test positivity rate of around 1%.
“This is the moment we have all been waiting for,” said Griffin Schwartz, who works for Hornblower Seadog Cruises on Navy Pier.
After a rocky pandemic marked by a fall and winter shutdown to save money, the lakefront tourist destination said in a statement Friday it would follow the phase five guidelines and no longer require masks, remove capacity limits and, for instance, resume seating unrelated parties in the same gondola on the Ferris wheel.
Its wording, though, echoed the cautious approach many are taking as they edge back toward normal: “However, face masks may still be worn based on the comfort level of each guest and business on the Pier.”
Having more people on board, whether they are masked or not, will be great for the boat tours he gives, said Schwartz: “It’s a lot easier to give a tour when there’s more people to laugh at your jokes.”
In Pilsen, Gabriela Pedroza and her husband, Ignacio Martinez, said they were taking a cautious approach to the reopening.
They sat on a bench outside Cafe Jumping Bean, 1439 W. 18th St., late Friday morning talking and sipping coffee with their small dog Ty at their feet.
Outdoors, they were maskless, but Pedroza said she’ll keep wearing a mask indoors despite the change in state rules.
“I feel like we’ve been wearing them so long it’s more of a habit now,” she said. “And I think it’s going to be a while before I take my mask off inside.”
What people demonstrate they are comfortable with will be the rule at Forest Park’s Madison Park Kitchen, said Marigo Doulas, whose family owns the eatery.
Although they put up a sign Friday for the first time saying, “Masks are now optional for fully vaccinated customers,” Doulas said, “we’ll just be following the customers and the staff. Are we going back to normal? I don’t know.”
And farther west on Madison Street, Exit Strategy’s Valleau said her business will be as cautious coming out of the pandemic as it was during it. The full complement of bar stools and indoor dining tables won’t return till fall, she figures, but she is looking forward to phasing out single-use serving ware next week.
“We’re really excited to go back to just like, our nice plates,” she said. “That’s going to be wonderful. … And I started this morning de-signing the place” — removing all the safety reminders she’s posted during the past year-plus — “and I need to de-sign the rest of it.”
On the North Shore, the Chicago Botanic Garden will “take a little time” to fully reopen, said Julie McCaffrey, public relations manager.
Available parking has been selling out on the weekend, and the place can feel fully open; some of the non-central buildings that have bathrooms, for instance, have not yet been opened.
“It’s not like flipping a switch,” she said. “We’re thinking through it.”
But Wrigleyville, at least on Friday, was a place where the great reopening was more fully embraced.
When the Cubs took on the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 1 for their 2021 home opener, Wrigley Field was only a quarter full, with just over 10,000 fans in attendance. Nearly everyone wore one — or even two — masks, and only 17% of Chicago residents had been fully vaccinated.
“Opening Day 2.0” had a different feel, beyond just the near-50-degree difference in temperature.
Gates opened two hours before the first pitch of the game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Previously, they opened only 90 minutes before. There were hardly any masks in sight, and most of the masks visible were strapped around people’s chins or elbows. Masks are optional inside the stadium for vaccinated fans.
During the season’s home opener in April, winter hats and Cubs face masks were bestsellers at the Clark Street Sports merchandise stand, Ridvan Mustafa previously told the Tribune. With more and more people getting vaccinated, mask sales have “died out,” Mustafa said Friday.
Shirts bearing the name and number of first baseman Anthony Rizzo have reclaimed the status of most popular item, Mustafa said, “almost like back to normal.”
Almost every table at Yak-Zies across the street from Wrigley was filled before the first pitch. The bar set out more tables and doubled its staff for Friday’s game, said general manager Leah Spagnoli.
Spagnoli said she had been “sweating for three days” preparing for the game, but she was “ready to be back to 2019.” As the season has progressed, more regulars have returned to the bar, she said.
Members of the Willis family were some of those regulars. Sitting around a table enjoying chicken wings, quesadillas, shots and beer, Gary Willis said Friday was the first time it felt like Yak-Zies again.
He typically goes to 15 or 20 games a season and has been to two or three this season, but Friday “feels like the first game,” Willis said.
Nisei Lounge on North Sheffield Avenue was a lot quieter before the game, but that’s typical for the bar, said Pat Odon, director of beer and baseball operations. Even before the pandemic, the bar didn’t serve food, so most people head to Nisei after the game, Odon said.
The slow pace left room for reflection on where we have been.
“It’s been 15 months of day-by-day survival,” Odon said. “It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that the new normal is the old normal.”
Chicago Tribune’s Gregory Pratt contributed.
![By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and DARLENE SUPERVILLE (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday said the first rule to set minimum staffing levels at federally funded nursing homes and require that a certain portion of the taxpayer dollars they receive go toward wages for care workers is a long-overdue “milestone” that […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Election_2024-Harris_89203.jpg?w=525 "By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and DARLENE SUPERVILLE (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday said the first rule to set minimum staffing levels at federally funded nursing homes and require that a certain portion of the taxpayer dollars they receive go toward wages for care workers is a long-overdue “milestone” that […]")
