San Diego Restaurants Can Increase Indoor Dining Capacity

San Diego County has officially moved into the orange, or moderate, tier of California’s color-coded reopening plan, meaning that starting Wednesday, April 7, restaurants can now operate indoors at 50 percent or 200 people, whichever is fewer. Safety protocol, including table-distancing and mask-wearing, must continue.

Indoor service at 25 percent capacity or 100 people is also allowed for wineries, breweries, and distilleries, which were previously restricted to outdoor service. Under the orange tier, these venues are no longer to require reservations or impose a 90-minute time limit for customers.

And bars that don’t serve food, which have been shuttered since the start of pandemic, can finally reopen for outdoor service with COVID-safe modifications.

The county has also lifted the 10 p.m. curfew for restaurants that has been in place since last summer.

Other orange tier changes include bigger capacity for live outdoor seated events, which means that Petco Park can now up its seating capacity from 20 percent to 33 percent. Museums, zoos, aquariums, and movie theaters can increase capacity indoors to 50 percent.

And starting April 15, indoor seated live performances can resume at 15 percent or 200 people, whichever is fewer, provided that new safety restrictions are implemented.

Governor Gavin Newsom also announced that the state will remove the tier system and fully reopen on June 15, with a continued mask mandate, if vaccination and hospitalization numbers remain stable.