Guide to Dining out in Lagos During CoVid-19

If you can’t tell how excited we are about restaurants in Lagos opening for dine-in, then you haven’t been paying attention.

We talk about it here and here

Since COVID is still very much around, we decided to create a short guide for staying safe while dining out during a pandemic. We too have gone out to eat since restaurants opened up and we talked about it here.

The government and restaurant managements have put measures in place for your safety, but you have to be careful and alert as well. If you absolutely must go out to eat, here are a few ways to stay safe while dining out:

• Check that the restaurant has been certified to open by the Lagos State Safety Commission (“LSSC”). If you have a particular restaurant in mind, look for their Instagram page, they will most likely have posted about being open once again.
• Mask up: your mask is highly imperative. Apart from keeping you and others safe, the establishment won’t let you in if you’re not wearing one.
• Carry hand sanitizer. This is key in keeping your hands germ-free. There will most likely be hand sanitizers at the entrance of these establishments.
• Check the restaurant’s safety practises. Are the employees wearing face masks, regularly disinfecting surfaces and practising social distancing? When we visited Craft Gourmet last week, this was one of the things we noticed. The staff were all adhering to safety precautions.

• If you have to stand in a queue (unlikely) and even while sitting, practise social distancing and stay at least 2 metres away from the next person.

• When you are not eating, wear your face mask. To avoid constant contact, menus are either going to be disposable or digital, as it was at Craft Gourmet.
• Go for outdoor seating areas, as this is less high-risk than indoor dining. “COVID-19 transmission is less likely to occur in outdoor settings versus indoor settings,” according to infectious disease expert Amesh A. Adalja, MD, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Maryland, United States. “Breezes in the open air help to whisk away infectious droplets very quickly, and if it’s warm and sunny, the risk of surface transmission would decrease—higher temperatures kill the virus more quickly.”

We want you to stay safe, even while enjoying good food. Are there any extra precautions you take in securing your safety while dining out? Share with us!