ST CHARLES, Mo. — When Haley Williams and Trevor Robbins walked into their rehearsal dinner Thursday, they were just ahead of new restrictions affecting Main Street St. Charles businesses.
"We had to reschedule our wedding multiple times so, you know, we kind of slid in right before the cut-off," Williams said.
The street's bars and restaurants are already limiting capacity, but employees say they were seeing huge crowds show up. When those same people couldn't get into a venue, they gathered in the street, leading to some fights and a change.
Bars and restaurants will quiet any live music and DJ sets at 11 p.m. to discourage crowds.
"I think -- as a whole -- the restaurants banded together realizing that if we don't do this right now, we might string along and be a while. So we figured we would do [the music restrictions] and hopefully, this will be the quickest result," manager Dennis Dixon said.
Dixon's venue -- Quintessial -- makes about 50% of all sales after the dinner rush, when the venue transitions into a nightclub.
He says they've made staffing changes, but these next weeks are yet another trial during the pandemic.
"'You know, it's unknown. We staffed what we think 'accordingly' is. Hopefully, things go the way we're planning but we don't know," Dixon said. "This is all a trial this first week, and we're going to see as a business where we are and how to staff appropriately because we just don't know at this point."
Dixon says they have extended dinner service to make up for some of the lost nightclub revenue.
