A German café that reopened to the public after the country eased its lockdown restrictions has taken a novel approach to social distancing. The café’s customers were asked to wear hats constructed from swimming pool noodles to make sure they remained sitting 5 feet apart.
Café & Konditorei Rothe in Schwerin, Germany, went viral for its gimmick. After café owner Jacqueline Rothe, 52, posted a photo of her hat-toting customers on Facebook on May 9, 2020, hundreds flocked to comment on the humorous sight.
The photo depicts a sunny day on the quiet streets of Schwerin and a handful of happy customers relaxing with their beverages, all sitting the appropriate distance away from one another.
“How awesome is this, please? Irony and sarcasm united,” one netizen commented, “very welcome at this time, from my point of view.”
“Will the hats be disinfected after wearing? What’s next?” one person queried, raising concerns about the efficacy of the comedic hats.
“Imagine the chaos when all the propellers start and take off at once ...” another joked.
Rothe told the Independent that it was local German television company RTL, and not café staff, that had the idea to use the funny hats. The company was filming the reopening of cafés and restaurants in the area and had brought the pool noodle hats along with them as props.
“We asked our customers if they would take part by wearing the hats, and a lot of people said yes,” Rothe explained. “In these difficult times, it’s a pleasure to make others smile.”
The café owner clarified that the headwear had been designed for coverage of the reopening; her customers would not be expected to wear the colorful pool noodles on a regular basis.
“It was a perfect gag and of course it was funny,” Rothe told CNN, “our customers were really into it. But what it did show to us [was] how difficult it is to keep a distance of 1.5 meters.”
Rothe also expressed hope that the now-viral photo of her café’s reopening helps illustrate how challenging it will be for the service industry to recover from the pandemic when half of their seats remain unfilled. Cafés and restaurants in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern started reopening on May 9, reports Insider. The country’s lockdown started in mid-March and began to ease as of late April.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that flouting social distancing measures may cause a new wave of infections.
According to data collected by John Hopkins University, at the time of writing, Germany has 181,524 confirmed cases of the virus and 8,428 recorded fatalities.
People wearing face masks wait at a tram stop at Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Germany, on April 27, 2020. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Louise Chambers
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Louise Chambers is a writer, born and raised in London, England. She covers inspiring news and human interest stories.
