Servers in Revelstoke foresee challenging winter season during COVID-19

Revelstoke’s nightlife awakens from hibernation every winter. Tourists, ski bums, and locals alike sing like Queen at Regent’s karaoke night, and dance like Beyoncé with all their single ladies at Traverse. Who can say they don’t enjoy a cold one after a long day on the hill?

Nightlife will be severely curtailed

Kate Roberts works for a marketing agency and is the president of Stoke FM, but she has kept her job at The Village Idiot because she “just loves serving.”

Roberts tells the Revelstoke Mountaineer there is a shared concern among servers and bartender in town for the upcoming busy winter season. They are worried that people who come to Revelstoke for their annual vacation to let loose won’t realize that “Revelstoke’s nightlife is non-existent,” and that the capacity of bars and restaurants will be highly limited due to COVID-19 precautions.

Long wait times outside in the cold

At most restaurants and bars in town you cannot reserve a table. “People definitely always complain about line-ups. The difference this year is that they won’t be able to sit down and have a drink by the bar, or crowd by the entrance while they’re waiting.” Kate is worried guests will take their frustration out on servers after being left outside in the cold for hours.

Heavy snowfall in downtown Revelstoke. Photo: Aaron Orlando/Revelstoke Mountaineer Magazine

Time limits on tables

Roberts points out another issue: people not wanting to leave their table after a reasonable amount of time. Kate is wondering if a solution will be to implement a time limit on tables, as seen in other cities across B.C. Another suggestion is the app Open Table where you can book a table for one hour only. “The app seems to be working well in the cities, but when it comes to a resort town, it’s different because people want that social aspect and hang out.”

Plan for a fun night in

Roberts wants to give people friendly reminders about the changes and how to prepare for them. She encourages people to “plan for a fun night in. Bring board games and cards, buy takeaway, get food delivered through Revelstoke Delivery, or cook at home, and socialize in your Airbnbs or hotel rooms.”

Repeating the rules

Kate wants to make sure travelers know they cannot drink at the bar past 10 p.m., and that some places close even earlier. You cannot sit more than six people at a table. Once you are seated you have to stay in your seat unless it’s necessary to get up, and most restaurants and bars have limited capacity and will not be able to accommodate everyone, Roberts informs.

She believes that most people are used to these rules at home, “but when people go on vacation they forget, because it’s vacation time, it’s free for all, you want to party with your friends and be social, making all of the rules leave your mind.” Kate is tired of repeating herself. “As servers, we have literally become babysitters. The amount of time we have to tell people not to do things.”

Roberts hopes that spreading this awareness will filter out some people to stay at home and avoid the potential chaos of “a bunch of bodies walking aimlessly around town with nowhere to go and things getting a little crazy.” Roberts suggests thinking about going to town as a “dining experience,” instead of “getting rowdy and party until 3 a.m.”

House parties

With town closing early, Roberts is already seeing an increase in local house parties. She is also fearing that security will have to deal with “hotel parties” when the season kicks off, especially now that more outbreaks are happening at private gatherings.

Still support local

“We don’t want to tell people just stay in your hotel room, but we also want to set them up for success through preparing them that we no longer have a bar scene, a club scene, or normal social gatherings.”

Roberts talks about finding a balance between how many people we can accommodate. “Revelstoke needs tourism. We want people to come downtown and support local businesses, but there is a fine line.”

Kate suggests for bars to host more events where people sit down in their groups to avoid mingling. “We already have quiz nights, but what about bingo?” Have fun, be creative. Kate emphasizes “It doesn’t have to be a negative thing at all. It is still really fun here, it’s just a different kind of fun.”

Tourism Revelstoke 

The Revy Rules made by Tourism Revelstoke. Photo: Provided by Tourism Revelstoke.

Tourism Revelstoke has made The Revy Rules, as well as a helpful guide for tourists called “What to expect this winter in Revelstoke,” covering COVID-19 changes for bars and restaurants, transport, the resort, and backcountry skiing. 

“This year we are encouraging more semi-locals to come mid-week to spread out the pressure on the destination,” says Robyn Goldsmith, media coordinator at Tourism Revelstoke.

Recovery Task Force filling in the gaps

The beverage and food industry is not all alone in this jungle of insecurities. 

Since May this year, a local group of volunteers from a diversity of sectors in town, has through support from the city, been working with the nation-wide organization Recovery Task Force (RTF). Their goal is to “pull together a plan to get our local community back on track,” focusing on local businesses and the social well-being of Revelstoke locals, says chairman of RTF, Dylan Hardy. 

RTF helps to find solutions for needs and issues that are not anyone’s natural responsibility, “filling in the gaps in a Covid world,” as well as providing support for the actors who need it, says Hardy. An example was the need for masks in town, where RTF provided over twenty thousand free masks for the community. 

A third of jobs related to tourism

“The idea of not welcoming visitors doesn’t work for our community, a third of our jobs are related to tourism,” Hardy points out. He argues that “the highest impact risk is if we don’t have a season, that the people don’t show up.” 

Regarding the concern for the upcoming winter season, Hardy says there are two ways of thinking about it: “How do you manage an opportunity, or what are all the things that can go wrong.” 

He believes that the summer months proved that “we have a lot of hardworking and creative people here in town. There were huge collaborations between business, the city, volunteers, and individuals to come up with solutions that pre-COVID would have taken months to get sorted out, that we were able to do in days and weeks.” 

Winter patios?

Dylan Hardy is the chairperson of Revelstoke’s COVID-19 Recovery Task Force. Photo: Contributed by Dyland Hardy

Hardy admits that the winter season will be trickier, not having the patio extensions and parklets, which allowed businesses to operate in a safe way with a higher number of guests. Businesses with patios on private land can manage them as they please, while patios on public land are harder in winter because of practicalities such as snow removal and risk. However, “the city is open to collaborate with business owners that want to explore this,” Hardy says. 

It is up to the individual bar and restaurant owners how they chose to manage the situation, Dylan says. However, RTF is doing “pulse checks to figure out what is working and what is not, and acting as a catalyst of knowledge.”

Hardy is positive about the prospects of the future: “Just in the last two weeks, when walking around town, I see a noticeable improvement in Covid precautions, and in consistency.”

Patio outside Craft Bierhaus this summer. Photo: Cara Smith/Revelstoke Mountaineer Magazine

Spaces for the community to socialize

RTF is also working on creating, “spaces for the community that are set up to be safe, where people can enjoy the outdoors and share our community space set in central Revelstoke. It’s a tough one to solve, but we are rapidly working on it.”

Recovery Task Force is also doing a wellness survey for people of all ages who live in Revelstoke, to get a “pulse check on where we can anticipate pressure on this long, uphill climb,” Hardy says.

Hardy encourages locals to, “follow the Revy Rules, get your flu shot, and be patient, practical, and kind. Enjoy the great community that we’ve got, there are limitless opportunities outdoors, just get out there and have fun!”