Restaurant uses greenhouses so diners can socially distance while eating out

The restaurant industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. 

As we adjust to our socially distanced lifestyles, it’s impossible to imagine the prospect of eating in a restaurant in close quarters with other diners. 

One restaurant in Amsterdam has been testing a concept that involves diners eating in enclosed waterside greenhouses and being served food from a long wooden plank. 

Staff at the Mediamatic Eten restaurant have been trialling the concept of “Serres Séparées” (French for “separated greenhouses”) at the Oosterdok, an island dock in the Netherlands’ capital.

The restaurant plans to launch the greenhouse dining experience in June, when lockdown restrictions in the Netherlands will ease, and allow the reopening of bar terraces. Under those restrictions, restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres, and museums can begin operating once again, but people have to reserve in advance and keep a 1.5 metre distance. 

The restaurant says the greenhouses are only suitable for people who “are already intimate together.”