Crowd causes Green Lemon to close early on Cinco De Mayo

TAMPA (WFLA) – Cinco De Mayo was short and sweet as people flocked to celebrate at a Tampa restaurant.

The Green Lemon in Tampa had to shut their doors before 7:30 p.m. due to the mass influx of people who came to celebrate.

In a Instagram post, Green Lemon apologized and thought closing was the best decision in order to follow COVID-19 precautions.

View this post on Instagram

We’ve made the decision to close our doors for the rest of the night (7:20pm)🍴 Thank you so much for coming out to support us today for Cinco de Mayo ♥️ In fact SO many of you came out to that we felt that even with the precautions we put in place, we couldn’t serve you in an environment that we were comfortable with, due to volume and our ability to keep us all 6ft apart. Social safe! “Sometimes you are the dog, sometimes you are the tree… but you always live to Taco another day.” – J.W. #GreenLemon

A post shared by Green Lemon (@eatgreenlemon) on May 5, 2020 at 4:18pm PDT

Green Lemon management released a statement to Eight On Your Side on Tuesday evening

We have been incredibly fortunate throughout these challenging times. Our neighbors have been tremendously supportive, rewarding us with consistent business and taking such good care of our team during this unprecedented challenge for our community.
We got absolutely swamped with a massive influx of people for in person dining, takeout options and 3rd party delivery. Despite our best efforts to prepare, we fell short. By 6 o’clock, our team members and technology were failing to keep up with a pace to responsibly serve our guests and safely maintain social distancing guidelines. At that point the best thing to do was provide refunds for all outstanding orders and give away our remaining food to disperse the crowd quickly and safely.
While we were incredibly embarrassed, I would like to make one thing abundantly clear: the Tampa Police Department, Code Enforcement and our guests (some of whom were waiting for more than an hour) were both accommodating and gracious. They made the tough decision far easier than it should have been.
We will learn and be better prepared. We are also committed to making it up to our guests and are thinking how best to show appreciation for their patience and cooperation.
Jordan Warshavsky