Award-winning bartender Molly Wellmann closes and thoroughly cleans her bar, Japp’s Since 1879, every Monday. On Tuesday, after learning that a weekend customer was experiencing possible symptoms of COVID-19, she returned and did so again.
Japp’s will be closed for several days so Wellmann and his staff can be tested for the virus and authorized to return to work, he announced in an Instagram post.
“There is no playbook on how this is going and what you are supposed to do, so I’m just going with my intuition about what to do,” he said in a phone call Tuesday afternoon.
Wellmann said the client with potential symptoms called her Tuesday morning to tell her. The client had not yet received a positive diagnosis, but Wellmann said she was too concerned to wait.
“Everyone’s safety, the safety of my employees is my number one priority, so I take it very seriously,” he said. “When we can open, we will reopen with the strictest precautions.”
His decision places Japp’s on a growing list of Over-the-Rhine bars and restaurants to abruptly reopen and close again due to possible COVID-19 infections among customers or staff.
Five OTR businesses owned by restaurateur Daniel Wright closed for cleanup and testing on June 23 after an employee told Wright that he probably had COVID-19. Rhinegeist closed its nearby OTR tavern the same day after two workers tested positive.
Japp had already changed its operations significantly to reopen, according to Wellmann.
Customers have been instructed to make reservations, then order and pay using an app to avoid cross-contamination of menus, cash, and credit cards. Each door has a handle. Tools are bleached, surfaces are disinfected, and glassware is washed multiple times.
It is hard work, Wellmann said. The hardest part has been trying to convince customers to wear masks.
“If everyone wore the stupid mask, it sucks, I don’t like it either, I think we could really start to back this up,” he said.
Hamilton County is one of Ohio’s recent COVID-19 “hotspots,” as identified by Governor Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Health. The state government has deployed members of the Ohio National Guard to establish additional test sites, but DeWine has declined to consider restricting the restrictions or requiring the use of masks.
“It is a great challenge and it is very different” to steer the bar during a pandemic, Wellmann said. “I know that it is important to have a business for our community, to open it and to have a new and safe way of being a community, but I believe that everyone should be part of the safety precaution.”
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