Fully Booked!🍴
Restaurants are open, and busy! (10 diners at a time).
Hey Neighbour, Simon here. Another week of increasingly positive signs. Schools are back full-time on Monday, and yesterday we learned that pubs and restaurants will be able to seat 50 patrons from June 1. Scroll down to find out how eateries already open are faring. And to read about how Plunkett Street’s kids and teachers have been going.
I’m loving the crunch of autumn leaves under my feet, how about you? 🍂
Quick reminder: this is a free, weekly newsletter serving Woolloomooloo. Thanks to everyone who got in touch this week, please do email me if there’s something you want to share, or anything you want to know! Today’s edition is 739 words, a 3-minute read.
Where We’re At With COVID-19 😷
NSW has 3084 cases and 48 deaths, with only 13 new cases this last week, nine fewer than the week before. Increasingly encouraging.
NSW has tested more than 7000 people a day over the past week. Our postcode NSW 2011 has recorded 28 cases from 1710 tests: all recovered.
Australia has 7095 cases and 101 deaths, with 506 cases active.
From June 1, museums, galleries and libraries will reopen, and we’ll be able to travel to regional NSW for a holiday – feel like a break yet?!
What’s Open? What’s Closed? 🚫
For the past week restaurants have been able to reopen, provided they seat no more than 10 socially-distanced customers at a time. It’s pretty restrictive, but Woolloomooloo restaurants have been giving it a go.
On the Wharf, Jamie at China Doll revealed their tables are full until June: “I’m feeling really good about how things are looking”. Fully booked!
As previously reported, Manta have been pulling out all the stops to serve our community, with their lockdown Market Place. This week they’re also offering a three-hour lunch extravaganza ($125 a head), plus Bottomless Breakfasts for $60.
Elsewhere on the wharf, Aki’s, Kingsleys and Otto remain closed.
Crown Street between Cathedral and William Street is increasingly bustling. Chiara at Puntino says they are doing one hour sittings from 6pm Tuesdays to Saturdays, and continuing with their popular weekend Mercardo, “which has been doing really well”. Stefano at Contact Bar & Kitchen has launched a new menu this week and says the phone has been running red hot. Exciting.
Yesterday huge (not quite socially distanced!) crowds gathered outside Toki, which gave away 120 free meals to celebrate Chef Mimay’s birthday. Nice work.
Spreading the love, not the virus: Toki’s very well received birthday give away.
Back To School 😃
Schools across the state will be welcoming their students back full-time on Monday. Plunkett Street Public School principal Juliet Sonter is really looking forward to the return to some semblance of normality after a couple of very challenging months for kids and educators. “I have been immensely proud of the staff, students and families for the engagement with online learning,” she said. “Over the last two weeks we have welcomed students back one day a week. It has been really lovely to see all their beautiful faces, and hear the sounds of kids laughing in the school again.”
“School is a very quiet and lonely place without children.”
What I’m Reading This Week 🗞️
Three things I found interesting this week…
Novelist Arundhati Roy in the Financial Times: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”
Actress Cate Blanchett reflecting on home schooling her 5-year-old daughter in the New York Times: “I realised just how important a shared sense of meaning is in our brave new world of social distancing and self-isolation.”
This Junkee Media tribute to 23-year-old reporter Sam Langford, one of Australia’s brightest young journalists, who passed away suddenly this week.
Last But Not Least 🩰
In 1976, Sydney Dance Company commissioned renowned New York choreographer Remy Charlip to create a new work. Unfortunately, Australia’s stringent quarantine laws denied him entry, as he was not vaccinated for yellow fever. From confinement in North Head, Charlip sent 40 sketches and notes for the dancers, pieced together to form the work Woolloomooloo Cuddle. Wonderful things can come from lockdowns!
Until next time, stay safe, and please email if you have anything to share. Thanks!