As COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to dramatically spike across the country, the city of Denver, Colorado announced a new set of regulations on Friday named the “Home by Ten” Public Health Order aimed to help curb the spread of the virus. This new set of orders prohibits unregulated public or private gatherings of people who aren’t from a single household and calls for the closure of non-essential businesses by 10 pm.

However, one other provision included in Friday’s newly issued orders also tightened restrictions on a previous order from the city which required bars and breweries to offer full meals from partner restaurants, food trucks, and licensed food vendors. These revised stricter guidelines required that the partner-licensed food vendors to be located directly adjacent to the establishment in question, while still allowing food trucks to operate on-site. However, where a brewery could previously partner with a restaurant down the block to offer delivery to patrons in the event that an on-site food truck failed to show for a shift, under the revised guidelines the brewery would have to cease operations for the day.

Tonight, after an outpouring of response from Denver brewery owners, the city announced that it would further revise the Public Health Order to allow bars and breweries to continue operating so long as they partnered with a licensed food provider within a ten minute delivery radius. The full extent of today’s revision is included below:

Under the “Home by Ten” Public Health Order (PHO), bars may only allow on-premises alcohol consumption if they make full meals available from a licensed retail food establishment at all times that alcohol is being served. For bars who are partnering with off-site licensed retail food establishments to satisfy this requirement, the PHO intends that this food service be full sit-down meal service that is as immediately available as if the food were being provided by an on-premises full-menu kitchen.  Therefore, an off-premises licensed retail food establishment must be within a 10-minute delivery radius of the bar’s permanent licensed premises and must be able to provide the food promptly for seated meal service at the premises.

As 303 Magazine explains, Colorado’s COVID cases have climbed by 43% from 385 to now 573 within the previous two week period. The Home by 10 order also includes tighter restrictions around the number of people who can gather within homes, and at restaurants prior to 10pm, but includes an exception on Thanksgiving.

Still, while many brewery owners are breathing a deep sigh of relief at the lessened revisions, the question still looms in regard to what effect serving full meals on-site actually has on helping to curb the spread of the virus.

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