Germany: Cafe makes customers wear pool noodle hats to maintain social distancing

To ensure social distancing, a Café in Germany has made the customers wear a hat with swimming noodles attached to it to stay six feet apart as they relish coffee and a cake on the city’s backstreets. Owners of the Cafe Rothe in Schwerin — a town in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s home state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania — were allowed to reopen for the public.  

However, according to their official page on Facebook, during their reopening on Saturday, May 17, they had patrons don special hats with pool noodles to maintain appropriate space between the customers to avoid transmission of the coronavirus. In a photo that the café shared on Facebook, patrons can be seen enjoying the sunny weather seated with their company at outdoor tables, all wearing hats with colourful pool noodles.  

Owner Jacqueline Rothe reportedly said that customers enjoyed the silly hats, but the experiment proved how hard it is to maintain the distance, even for well-informed adults. Further, she added, this was the perfect method to keep customers apart — and a fun one. It was a perfect gag and of course, it was humorous for some, but customers were really into it. However, what it did show to the café was how difficult it is to keep a distance of 1.5 meters, she added. 

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Tables reduced to 20 from 56

With over 56 tables earlier, the restaurant was down to 20 because of hygiene and social distancing measures, according to reports. Meanwhile, some restaurants in the US have been using blow-up dolls and mannequins to give the restaurants a “fuller” feel for the customers. Open Hearth, an establishment in South Carolina had placed the dolls in the empty booths which the people had to leave vacant. While three-Michelin star restaurant Inn at Little Washington in Virginia placed the dressed-up mannequins, as per local media reports.  

With the seventh-highest number of coronavirus cases globally, Germany has reopened businesses. Further, the country announced that it would gradually return to resuming schools and the Bundesliga - Germany's top football league – over the next weekend, local media reports confirmed.  Merkel was quoted as saying, while speaking at the press conference, that the very first phase of the pandemic was over, but it was the overall beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. Further, she added, coronavirus could have a fresh wave of the outbreak as lockdown measures eased. 

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Read: Angela Merkel On Brink As Infection Rate Rises In Germany After Lockdown Eases

(Image Credit: Cafe & Konditorei Rothe)