Restaurants in Steinbach are gearing up for the loosening of restrictions starting this weekend.

On Wednesday, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister and Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin announced a number of changes that will take effect beginning Saturday morning. Changes will see capacities at restaurants and licensed premises expanding to 50 per cent, hours of operation extending to midnight, the lifting of the requirement that food must be purchased when ordering alcohol and VLTs allowed to operate within restaurants.

"It is very, very exciting," says Jimmy Koo, General Manager at Frantz Inn. "We were waiting for this to reopen for a very long time."

Koo says he is hopeful this will bring in more customers to the lounge, which can now remain open until midnight. He is also thrilled that VLTs will be operational again.

"We are constantly getting phone calls asking when are the VLTs open," adds Koo.

Koo says by all accounts it would appear that this should be the last major shutdown, as the COVID-19 situation is looking a lot more positive in our province. In fact, his expectation is that three weeks from now, everything will be back open at 100 per cent capacity.

"Especially when you look at other countries or even our neighbours in the US," says Koo. "They have higher vaccine rates and they have no masks and even reopen with no restrictions at all."

Bryan Bartel is the owner of MJ's Kafe. He says what was announced this week is certainly a step in the right direction. In fact, he goes as far as to say that this reopening is happening quicker than anticipated.

Though Bartel is excited by the change to expand their capacity, he notes it is going to take an adjusted mindset before restaurants start to fill up again.

"It's like we need consumer confidence and peoples' habits to go back to restaurants," notes Bartel. "So it actually won't be a huge shift for us. We have more seating capacity, which is great. Now, we just need customers to come back and they will. It will take a little bit of time."

Bartel says expanding capacity, will result in more staff coming in to work. Though, he says that is a process that started already a couple of weeks ago, primarily the servers. Bartel explains that with less table service, there was not as great a need for serving staff. But, that is now changing.

"They are coming back and we're just thrilled about that," adds Bartel.

He notes they have also started to adjust their hours of operation. Bartel says last week they tested the waters and opened on Saturday. He notes it ended up being a fabulous day. This week they are trying to cater to the breakfast crowd by opening Friday at 9 am.

"We're playing around with things a little bit," he says. "We want to be efficient, so we're kind of trying to figure out what the consumer demands are and try and fill those."

Bartel says he would like to see a few more restrictions lifted, noting wearing masks is tough in this heat, and checking patrons' vaccination cards is cumbersome.

Meanwhile, over at Smitty's, Director of Operations Chris Dyck says Wednesday's announcement was very exciting. He says when it comes to anticipating the loosening of restrictions, he prefers to have no expectations and just be grateful for what comes.

"That's kind of been our philosophy with that," says Dyck. "But it is for sure a step in the right direction and we can't wait for the next round and guests and customers and Manitobans have all been great and we're for sure headed in the right direction."

Dyck says one of the biggest changes is that starting Saturday they will be allowed to stay open longer.

"That's one of the best parts," he says. "We're able to be open till midnight now in the lounge and patio starting on Saturday. So that is a nice change from 10 pm which was a pretty hard stop."

He notes another good change for them is that patrons will be able to order alcohol without also being required to order food.

Dyck says the loosening of more restrictions will result in a need for more staff, particularly for the patio, lounge and kitchen.