Restaurants throughout Texas are allowed to reopen at 25% capacity. Restaurants reopen, battles ensue over masking orders Crowds pack those patios upon their reopening. Gonzalez-Pool/Getty Images Texas eyes reopeningĪpAbbott forms a strike force to help create a plan to reopen Texas, including business leaders, restaurant owners and other Texas dignitaries.ĪpDallas County Judge Clay Jenkins requires residents to wear face coverings in public, including restaurants.ĪpA service industry group called Shift Dallas pleads with Greg Abbott to provide basic protections for service industry workers.ĪpColleyville mayor Richard Newton announces his intention to defy Abbott’s still-in-effect restaurant closure by allowing Colleyville restaurants to open their patios. MaAs grocery store shelves go bare of essential items, Dallas officials urge residents who can to stay away from grocery stores at the beginning of the month so that those on food assistance programs can buy what they need. MaAbbott tells Texans to stay at home except for essential activity. MaTarrant County issues its first stay-at-home order. MaDallas County issues its first stay-at-home order. MaAbbott issues an executive order closing bars and restaurants across the state through April 3. MaDallas County records its first COVID-19 death, a Richardson man in his 60s. MaSeveral DFW-area suburbs order bars and restaurants to close temporarily to stop the spread of the virus. MaAbbott signs a waiver allowing restaurants to sell alcohol to-go for the first time ever, so long as it is served with food. MaTexas Health and Human Services confirms the state’s first Covid-19 death, a Matagorda County man in his 90s, on March 15. MaDallas Mayor Eric Johnson requires restaurants and bars in the city to close their dining rooms. Patrick’s Day Parade, which typically brings a crowd of more than 125,000 people to the neighborhood. MaDallas officials cancel the annual Greenville Avenue St.
North Texas grapples with how to prevent spread of coronavirus MaTexas Governor Greg Abbott declares a statewide emergency as coronavirus cases across the state begin to rise. The Frisco man’s wife and three-year-old daughter also test positive. The patient is a Frisco man in his 30s who had recently traveled to California on a business trip, where he was unknowingly exposed to another person with COVID-19. MaThe first case of COVID-19 is confirmed in North Texas. The man had recently returned from traveling abroad. Ma– A Fort Bend man tests positive for COVID-19, becoming the first case in Texas. From an premature reopening to a backtracking from Texas Governor Greg Abbott that re-closed bars after less than a month, it’s been a tough year for the Metroplex’s food and drink industry.īecause it’s almost impossible to keep up with everything that’s happened in the Dallas restaurant scene since the beginning of March, use this comprehensive timeline as a guide to how (and when) the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the city and state. Since then, DFW-area bars, restaurants and kitchens have struggled to endure the often conflicting guidelines, changing rules issued by the state, and economic insecurity caused by the global pandemic. It’s been more than five months since the first case of COVID-19 appeared in North Texas.