Venues to open on Friday with restrictions on patrons and no bars or bets

Mid-Western residents will be able to sit down and enjoy their favourite local pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants from today after the state government changed their earlier decision to allow just cafes and restaurants to open, but it comes with a catch, a couple actually.

From Friday, you'll be able to dine at pubs and clubs, but bars and gaming facilities will remain closed. The other catch is these venues will all be forced to stick to a maximum of 10 patrons at any time.

Many local restaurants, cafes and pubs have been busy preparing takeaway food for the region's hungry residents in the recent weeks and the easing of these restrictions isn't the return to normal that many had hoped.

Prince of Wales Hotel licensee Rowena Ellis said while their doors may not be open on Friday due to having to set everything up once again, early next week will be the moment locals can return.

What's open from Friday:

"We just need the weekend to turn everything back on again and set the place up since it's all been turned off for a long time. Everything will be ready for us to open again on Monday," Rowena said.

"I'm really looking forward to reopening, the announcement last night [Wednesday, May 13] was really good.

"We're lucky out here because the JobKeeper payment has really helped us to function under the circumstances.

"If we weren't getting that, we wouldn't be able to open with 10 people, it just wouldn't be viable.

"I hope everyone's doing well and I'm looking forward to them popping their heads in again and having a meal."

While Cafe 89 has remained open for takeaway continually throughout the whole period where COVID-19 restrictions were in place, they too will be opening on Friday.

Some pubs in the region aren't so sure about the announcement.

"We are looking forward to having our regulars back and others from the community to sit down and join us for a proper coffee again," Cafe 89 owner, Jo Gates said.

Mudgee publican Des Kennedy who owns the Oriental Hotel, The Paragon Hotel and Woolpack Hotel in Mudgee said he isn't sure for some pubs if it's worth opening for just 10 patrons.

"I'm still undecided about that... I could let 10 people sit at the bottom lounge provided they book. I don't know whether it's worthwhile turning on the air conditioning, refrigeration, paying a staff member for 10 people. Put it this way, it wouldn't be for a money-making exercise it'll be just to you know, a facility for people that have been loyal and locals to our pub," he said.

"We just can't fathom why pubs have been treated differently to places like Bunnings, Big W, Woolworths, Coles, ALDI. Countless - not 10 - countless people go to the stores, go to the counter, pay at the counter... people obviously have enough common sense to keep the 1.5m social distancing rule... it's sort of become second nature to us.

"In the last seven weeks, how many millions of transactions have taken place at Bunnings, ALDI, Woolworths, Big W, Coles and no case - that we know of - has come from those stores with all those people shopping. And yet any poor old publican, who's not a multinational and who needs the money to bloody pay the mortgage is allowed to have 10 people sit down.

"Anyway, we we'll all cop it, it's better than nothing."

Mr Kennedy said it's good to see restrictions being eased and credited the low number of regional infections to the successful management of the pandemic by the state government.

"They [the government] have done a good job in the country, we've had 97-something deaths, they told us we could have had 100,000 when it started so they've obviously done a great job so far...we'll see how it goes," he said.

"We'll cop it, see how we go with it, maybe in three or four weeks hopefully we'll be open - obviously with limited numbers. We're mostly family-run businesses so we'll do the right thing.

"We've all got families and kids of our own, so we'll do the right thing when we can reopen."

This sentiment was echoed by Tony Brown at Lawson Park Hotel who said they're opening to a maximum of 10 patrons but hopes this is a clear step towards a further opening of venues in the future.

On Thursday, NSW reported four more COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday, bringing the state's total to 3063.

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