The safe­ty of our teams and our guests is our top pri­or­i­ty and we have been work­ing behind the scenes to ensure we can re-open safely

– TRAIN­ING: All our team have been trained on how to cre­ate a safe and invit­ing envi­ron­ment with new pro­ce­dures in place.

– COVID-19 CHAM­PI­ON: A mem­ber of staff on duty will be a des­ig­nat­ed COVID-19 cham­pi­on and avail­able to help if you have any queries or concerns.

– TEM­PER­A­TURE CHECKS: Dai­ly team tem­per­ate checks before their shift starts

– SANI­TIS­ER STA­TIONS: Acces­si­ble sani­tis­er sta­tions for all through­out the restaurant

– VIS­I­BLE SIG­NAGE: Clear­ly vis­i­ble phys­i­cal dis­tance sig­nage through­out the restaurant

– CLEAN­ING: Every 30 min­utes at a min­i­mum with sur­face sani­ti­sa­tion and team mem­bers wash­ing their hands for 20 seconds.

REDUCED CAPAC­I­TY AND REVISED SEAT­ING PLANS

– SEAT­ING PLANS: We have care­ful­ly placed our fur­ni­ture to adhere to social dis­tanc­ing guidelines

– REDUCED CAPAC­I­TY: Our book­ing poli­cies have changed to ensure we can mon­i­tor capac­i­ty at all times ensur­ing all areas of the restau­rant are eas­i­ly acces­si­ble and social dis­tanc­ing guide­lines can be adhered to.

Bois­dale Live Music in Restau­rants Campaign

After care­ful­ly study­ing the Government’s advice con­cern­ing live music per­for­mances, we do not con­sid­er all live music is con­trary to HMG Guide­lines. The Government’s short para­graph (see below) request­ing venues do not per­mit live music, failed to take into account all gen­res of live music and the dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ments in which it can be per­formed. It is counter intu­itive that pre-record­ed music, at a vol­ume that does not cause cus­tomers to raise their voic­es, is accept­able in restau­rants and bars, but not live music at the same vol­ume. No account seems to have been tak­en of restau­rants that spe­cialise in ambi­ence enhanc­ing live music to aug­ment the din­ing expe­ri­ence. For­tu­nate­ly, the advice, as we under­stand it, is set out as firm guid­ance and is not statu­to­ry. HMG’s Guide­lines go on to say, ​“We will devel­op fur­ther guid­ance, based on sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence, to enable these activ­i­ties as soon as pos­si­ble.” We hope that our con­clu­sions may be used to help devel­op and for­mu­late the next stage of the live music Covid-19 pol­i­cy in the UK. Bois­dale have enjoyed live music every night for over 21 years. Live music is inte­gral to our busi­ness as a restau­rant. We believe we are able to com­ply with the Government’s inten­tions by intro­duc­ing a reduced live music pro­gramme with some inno­va­tion and strict man­age­ment controls.

Bois­dale Live Music Covid-19 Protocol

1. A Jazz trio does not con­tra­vene HMG’s sci­en­tif­ic rea­son­ing if the fol­low­ing pro­ce­dures are followed:

i) No vocalist.

ii) Three musi­cians 1.5 metres apart e.g. piano, dou­ble base and guitar.

iii) No cus­tomers with­in 1.5 metres.

iv) Vol­ume of music is main­tained at a lev­el to ensure that the din­ing audi­ence can eas­i­ly con­verse over a table with­out rais­ing their voic­es i.e. at the same lev­el of vol­ume as pre-record­ed ambiance music.

v) Sound is vig­i­lant­ly con­trolled remote­ly by man­age­ment. All instru­ments are elec­tric so there is no acoustic sound issue.

vi) No brass or wind instru­ments which could fun­nel and blow pos­si­ble contagion

vii) No drums which can raise the sound levels.

viii) The seat­ed din­ing din­ers will be told pre-arrival via email con­fir­ma­tion of reser­va­tion, on a tent card on the table and by staff that:

- Con­ver­sa­tion to be kept low dur­ing the performance.

- Danc­ing and singing are prohibited.

ix) The style of jazz is to cre­ate ambiance for din­ers and not for dancing.

x) All guests are seat­ed through­out the evening. There is no standing.

xi) With a far high­er ratio of staff to cus­tomers there are much strong cus­tomer con­trols in place.

xii) All musi­cal instru­ments are cleaned before and after each per­for­mance, in line with the strict clean­ing meth­ods through­out the restaurant.

xiii) The singer and musi­cians will not direct­ly inter­act with the audi­ence, for e.g. song requests or hap­py birth­day messages.

xiv) Musi­cians to be tem­per­a­ture checked on arrival.

2. The Bois­dale method devised and devel­oped to avoid the risk of trans­mis­sion via ​“aerosol” trans­mis­sion to an audi­ence from a vocal­ist in addi­tion to all oth­er pre­cau­tions list­ed above:

i) The singer will per­form stand­ing at the front of the stage fac­ing the audi­ence and will have a floor to ceil­ing Per­spex par­ti­tion sep­a­rat­ing him from the audi­ence (the stage is 4.5 metres by 2 metres). There will be anoth­er adjoin­ing Per­spex par­ti­tion run­ning back 2 metres on the vocal­ists right (a wall is on the vocal­ists left). In effect the singer is in a two metre Per­spex box with a 2 metre open­ing behind. The entire audi­ence is in front of the vocal­ist apart from two tables to the right pro­tect­ed by the return­ing Per­spex partition. 

ii) The pianist will be per­form­ing 2 metres behind the vocal­ist. We do not think accord­ing to our under­stand­ing of the HMG Guide­lines that a face mask is nec­es­sary, but it is an option. There will be a dou­ble base 1 metre behind the pianist.

iii) None of the oth­er musi­cians will be singing.

Non-Statu­to­ry HMG guide­lines on live music as stat­ed online:

Objec­tive: To main­tain social dis­tanc­ing when pro­vid­ing enter­tain­ment with­in or out­side restau­rants, pubs, bars and sim­i­lar venues that serve food or drink.

• For many restau­rants, pubs and bars, pro­vid­ing entertainment

such as record­ed music, live sports broad­casts, quizzes, live musi­cians or come­di­ans are an impor­tant part of their business.

• At this time, venues should not per­mit live per­for­mances, includ­ing dra­ma, com­e­dy and music, to take place in front of a live audi­ence. This is impor­tant to mit­i­gate the risks of aerosol trans­mis­sion — from either the performer(s) or their audience.

There will be fur­ther guid­ance set­ting out how per­form­ing arts activ­i­ty can be man­aged safe­ly in oth­er set­tings, for instance rehears­ing or broad­cast with­out an audience.

• All venues should ensure that steps are tak­en to avoid peo­ple need­ing to undu­ly raise their voic­es to each oth­er. This includes, but is not lim­it­ed to, refrain­ing from play­ing music or broad­casts that may encour­age shout­ing, includ­ing if played at a vol­ume that makes nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion dif­fi­cult. This is because of the poten­tial for increased risk of trans­mis­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly from aerosol trans­mis­sion. We will devel­op fur­ther guid­ance, based on sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence, to enable these activ­i­ties as soon as pos­si­ble. You should take sim­i­lar steps to pre­vent oth­er close con­tact activ­i­ties, such as com­mu­nal dancing.