Philly businesses shuttered by coronavirus say they can’t reopen until you feel safe leaving your house

» UPDATE: Gov. Wolf outlines plans for reopening in early June

The owner of three Philadelphia bars and restaurants says he’s afraid of letting anyone back inside: “You think you’d take a seat at an empty bar stool near a bunch of strangers?”

The head of Boscov’s, the department-store chain that’s been shut for weeks, is anxious but staying focused on how to make customers and employees feel safe returning: “The masks that we need. The special cleaning policies and procedures.”

And the chairman of a major Center City law firm expects some employees won’t come back to the office until there’s a vaccine for the coronavirus — which even under optimistic scenarios could be 18 months away.

President Donald Trump has eagerly pushed to restart an American economy largely frozen by the pandemic, and the outlines of a gradual reopening came into focus this week with new federal guidelines. On Friday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf laid out his own three-phase plan for slowly getting the state back to work, saying it would take place region by region, and could only begin once there is sufficient testing for the virus and personal protective equipment for health-care workers.

“Moving to reopen large swaths of our economy now is only going to prolong this crisis," he said. “There isn’t going to be one big day.”

Even when officials do give the green light, many businesses are going to operate on their own timeline, based on the availability of testing and whether workers and customers believe it’s safe, according to interviews with more than a dozen Philadelphia-area business executives, labor leaders, and trade groups.

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Employers are also worried about potential legal liability they may face if workers or customers get sick. Even as businesses try to anticipate how the new world order may affect everything from consumer behavior to supply chains, the specter of the virus’ resurgence looms large.

“It would take a lot to convince me to reopen,” said Nish Patel, owner of Del Rossi’s Cheesesteak Co. at Fourth and Spring Garden Streets. It’s the top GrubHub delivery location in Pennsylvania, with more than 50,000 orders a year.

Del Rossi’s is still doing pickup and delivery, but its sit-down restaurant is closed like others across the state. And even if shutdown orders were lifted “tomorrow or next week," Patel said, “without adequate testing or proper protocols, for the safety of the staff I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

Just about every day brings fresh evidence of the extent of the economic damage wrought by government-ordered shutdowns. Almost 22 million Americans have filed jobless claims in just four weeks, including one-fifth of Pennsylvania’s workforce. Data this week showed a record 8.7% drop in U.S. retail sales in March. And a new $350 billion government loan program for small businesses has quickly run out of money.

And even as public health officials say aggressive social distancing measures have helped stabilize the rate of new infections, they emphasize that those policies must continue for now.

The vast majority of the public appears to share health officials’ concerns. Once the government lifts restrictions and businesses and schools start to reopen, 71% of U.S. adults say they want to “wait to see what happens with the coronavirus before resuming” their normal activities, according to a Gallup poll published this week. Just 20% say they would resume their normal lives immediately, and an additional 10% would wait indefinitely.

Two-thirds of Americans say they are more concerned that state governments will lift restrictions too quickly, rather than not quickly enough, according to a Pew survey.

With no vaccine or widespread testing in place, it’s unlikely consumers will flood into stores, said Syon Bhanot, a behavioral and public economist at Swarthmore College. And conflicting messages from the White House, different governors, and other officials could also complicate matters.

“Mixed messages in general inhibit behavior changes,” Bhanot said. “Usually this means sticking with the status quo.”

Meaning those staying at home may continue to do so.

“I’m so afraid of letting anybody in the place,” said Mark Bee, owner of the Philadelphia bars and restaurants North 3rd, Silk City, and Franky Bradley’s. “I don’t know what it’s going to take. ... A vaccine would help. But I can’t see anyone wanting to sit down next to anyone.”

Jim Boscov, chairman and CEO of the Reading-based Boscov’s department stores, said it’s too soon to say what he’ll be doing for Memorial Day, typically a big draw for retail. He said he reopened some stores Wednesday with state approval, using a limited number of employees to expand online shopping offerings. He said he would follow the guidance of government and medical professionals for what comes next.

“For a chain of department stores to be closed for weeks is incredibly painful,” he said. “I am anxious to reopen when it’s safe to reopen.”

In the hard-hit hospitality industry, a major economic driver in the region, pinpointing an exact timeline for reopening is difficult. “We know that we’ll need to make baby steps on this,” said Julie Coker, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Coker said she’s keeping an eye on when other cities across the country will lift their stay-at-home restrictions and monitoring when international flights will resume. American Airlines, which dominates traffic at Philadelphia International Airport, is currently scheduled to restart flights between Philadelphia and London on June 4.

Conventions may not resume until later. “Most of them are looking at September and beyond,” Coker said. Cleanliness “is going to be top of mind,” she said. The classic lunch buffet may be replaced by plated meals, and hotels are working on diagrams to space out seats in large meeting rooms.

The hospitality industry is responsible for more than 192,000 jobs in the five-county region. But the “reopening” of the economy won’t work if workers don’t feel comfortable leaving their homes. Dermot Delude-Dix, a research analyst at the hospitality workers’ union UNITE HERE, said his group was most concerned that people would face an impossible choice: Stay unemployed or risk your life.

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Many of UNITE HERE’s 7,000 members in the region have been laid off. The union — whose members include airline catering, stadium food service, and casino workers, many of whom lack health insurance — wants employers to provide protective equipment and pay for testing.

“You want people to have the security and stability that comes with having a job," Delude-Dix said, "but you don’t want people to die.”

Gabe Morgan, Pennsylvania director for the service workers’ union 32BJ SEIU, noted that essential workers have already sounded the alarm about a lack of safety precautions on the job. “I can’t wrap my brain around to how you would expose nonessential workers to these conditions," he said.

A convention center or restaurant that’s used to seating lots of people in close proximity may have different considerations than other industries.

Brad Lipstein, president of Henry A. Davidsen, Master Tailors & Image Consultants in Philadelphia, said his showroom is by appointment only, “so the flow of traffic is already limited and never crowded.”

“We will continue to encourage hand-washing, provide hand sanitizer, and ask anybody feeling sick or who’s been in contact with someone sick to wait to come in," he said.

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Independence Blue Cross, one of the region’s biggest employers, is beginning to map out which parts of the company could come back first and how it can practice social distancing in the office, CEO Dan Hilferty said. The insurer was one of the first in the area to allow remote work as the coronavirus spread, and that has given the company some flexibility, with no need to rush people back to offices, Hilferty said.

“We feel very good about the ability to separate people, whether it’s two cubicles or two offices apart,” Hilferty said.

Mark S. Stewart, chairman of Ballard Spahr, a law firm based in Philadelphia with 650 attorneys and 15 offices across the country, said he thinks offices will be “up and running in some form in the summer.” Some employees will continue to work remotely, he said.

“We’ll want to be sure people are safe,” Stewart said. “Having lots of places where people can wash their hands. I’m not sure everyone will be wearing masks, but it will be better not having people clustered together and having meetings where people are sitting at a distance.”

He acknowledged the threat of lawsuits was “one of the guardrails with bringing back people too soon” but said he would be “guided by what we feel is safe.”

“You can’t run your life worrying about whether you’ll get sued,” he said. “You have to do the right thing.”

-Staff writers Erin Arvedlund, Joseph N. DiStefano, and Catherine Dunn contributed to this article.