MISSOULA — Paradise Falls, a local favorite bar in Missoula, is back open after closing down due to an employee testing positive for COVID-19 in late June.
Paradise Falls was closed from June 26 to July 6 in order to clean the restaurant and bar before reopening to the public. In that time, the establishment had to submit a staged plan to the health department detailing how they would sanitize the facility.
While Paradise Falls lost their business for 10 days, manager Jordanne Barecca says being transparent was the obvious thing to do.
"Our safety concern was not just for the employees here but also for our customers and staff," said Barecca. "So, we just wanted to be as transparent as possible, if anybody did end up with any kind of symptoms or anything, make sure that they went and got checked right away and just let people know of any kind of exposure dates just so they could follow the health departments protocol."
The Staggering Ox, which also closed down on June 26 due to a positive COVID-19 test to an employee, also reopened its doors on Wednesday.
Paradise Falls has only been back up and running since Tuesday, but business is starting to pick up again.
"Yesterday was a little slow, it was a little busier today because I think more people actually knew that we were open," said Barecca. "Just hoping it continues to get busier as people realize that we're open and we're taking all the precautionary measures to make sure it's a clean and safe place for people."
