After nearly two months of being closed to the public, many restaurants are once again opening their doors for dine-in services today.

Unfortunately, that isn't the case for one local establishment and business staple in the Cochrane community. 

Mark and Michelle Horton are the owners of the Rocky View Hotel and Texas Gate Bar & Grill, and they say that reopening at this stage, with the limitations in place isn't feasible for the one hundred plus year establishment.

"We've now gone through two closures, I've gone through two complete layoffs of staff and two times where we have had to either throw out or give away a significant amount of product," says Horton. "For us, for right now it makes sense for us to hold off [on reopening]."

Horton believes that the yo-yo effects of opening and closing again is more detrimental to the hospitality industry. He says that with the uncertainties surrounding the new COVID variants, he believes that the government may be jumping the gun on re-opening at this stage.

He says that this is typically the slowest time of the year for the restaurant and hospitality industry, and he fears that rushing to reopen now, may end up hurting the industry even more during their peak season.

"January, February, March in the foodservice industry are the three toughest months of the year in the best of times, pre-COVID, whatever," says Horton. "With these new variants especially, my biggest fear is that okay, we all get open and then it's not going well and then we end up getting closed again during our peak revenue season."

Horton feels that the government is placing unrealistic expectations on workers in the food and beverage industry, and he believes that the responsibility shouldn't lie on restaurant servers to enforce strict government policies.

"They're asking us to become COVID cops! What they're proposing is that every new table that comes in, we have to fill out a contact information sheet and they want us to ensure that those people at that table are all from the same household," says Horton. "I didn't sign up to work for the government and I didn't sign up to become a policeman. How about we put that responsibility where it lies?"

The Texas Gate Bar & Grill has been closed to the public since December 13, 2020.