With the shutdown of many aspects of commerce that we take for granted, many small businesses struggled to stay afloat during the quarantine. Although the government provided a variety of loans and financial bailouts, small businesses such as restaurants and retail stores are still struggling tremendously. 

On May 1st in the Houston area, restaurants were allowed to reopen under strict guidelines. The resturants can only operate at 25% capacity, all parties must be seated six feet apart, and there cannot be more than six people to a party. Despite the loosening of restrictions,  many restaurants have decided to stay close and continue to only offer curbside pickup and/or delivery. At the moment most restaurants in the Market street area are continuing to just offer takeout. In the woodlands a couple of restaurants have decided to reopen, such as Landry’s and Grotto. 

There are similar restrictions for most retailers. They are also allowed to open, but only to 25% capacity. They are still allowed to offer in-store pickups and curbside pickups where the employee will take the purchase to a customer’s car. At the moment, the task force is suggesting that stores have specific times for at-risk patrons. The Woodlands Mall has been doing mall-wide pickup and curbside delivery services, but is set to fully reopen with social distancing procedures on May 5th. 

Because of the coronavirus, all movie theatres in the Woodlands have shut down following the CDC’s guidelines. They are allowed to reopen, but many movie chains have decided to stay closed until summer as they don’t feel they have the resources to safely operate. At the moment there has been no exact date for when many movie theatres will reopen, and many movie studios have been releasing big pictures that were supposed to go into theatres onto on-demand or other streaming platforms where they can be watched like “Emma”, “Onward”, and “The Way Back”.