Yoder’s Kitchen Reopens Inside Dining

Douglas County State’s Attorney Kate Watson Will Not Prosecute

Yoder’s Kitchen opened their restaurant on Friday, May 15 allowing their patrons to dine inside once again despite the governor’s stay at home order and are taking precautions to ensure their customer’s safety.

Owner Anna Herschberger stated, “As a small business owner during this pandemic, it has been extremely difficult to nearly close our entire restaurant. However, we fully complied with all of our governor’s executive orders since day one on March 16. Almost two months later with no real plan or end in sight, we decided we had to take a stand against his unconstitutional actions, or risk losing our business altogether. After attempting all other avenues, we were forced to seek legal counsel. After no opposition from local authorities, Douglas County Health Department, or Douglas County States Attorney, we were able to open up last Friday for dine in service.”

She went on to say, “We’ve greatly changed our services, in that we are not operating our buffet lines and only doing menu selection. We are deep cleaning between all customers, offering paper menus, and limiting capacity inside the restaurant in order to maintain social distancing practices.”

When asked what business was like on Friday and Saturday she commented, “We have been quite busy during the first two days of our reopening and have been blessed with a great community and great customers who are supporting our efforts. We truly appreciate everyone’s kind words and hope that we will be able to reopen and restore Illinois as soon as possible.”

Jo’s Country Diner in Chesterville opened for dine in on Thursday last week with fifty percent seating capacity, menu selection orders, and no buffet. Hours for breakfast are 7:00-10:30 and lunch is available 11:00-1:00 pm.

Late Friday afternoon Douglas County State’s Attorney Kate Watson issued a statement saying she would not prosecute businesses or churches who re-open in Douglas County in defiance of the governor’s orders — as long as safe practices such as social distancing are observed.

However, she warns that business owners could face loss of insurance protection, civil liabilities, loss of worker’s compensation coverage, license revocation, etc. and encouraged every business and church to seek legal counsel before reopening.

She added that she will prosecute for reckless disregard for safety and will issue cease-and-desist letters as deemed necessary.