Wednesday's announcement by Gov. Mike Parson that all state employees would return to their pre-COVID work settings by May 17 was welcome news to downtown Jefferson City business owners.
Madison's Cafe owner Rob Agee said the announcement "certainly can't hurt."
"We always hope it will increase, but we know things can change rapidly," Agee said.
Agee also said they've seen business pick up since the beginning of the year as more state agencies had staff coming back into their offices.
"We're doing enough to survive and then some," Agee said. "Having a full legislative session has helped. We are still using Centers for Disease Control guidelines with limited seating, but we have been doing a lot of takeout and to-go business."
Other businesses have noted an uptick in traffic as well.
"More people downtown means more people in our business, and we like that," Sweet Smoke BBQ manager Melissa Biggs said. "In the past month, our traffic has been extremely better.
"Those first few months of the pandemic were tough when we could just do carryout. We're fully open now. We're not requiring masks, but we are constantly sanitizing around the restaurant," she said.
Downtown Book and Toy manager CC McClure noted Tuesday was the one-year anniversary of the reopening of businesses following a brief shutdown during the first few weeks of the pandemic.
"We're not back to the levels of business we had prior to the pandemic, but our sales have been growing, especially since the start of this year," McClure said.
Gary Plummer, new president and chief executive officer of the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce, was also pleased to see the governor make the announcement and applauded him for having a "consistent across-the-board policy."
"We had heard that different agencies would handle the return of employees differently, and we were concerned that might create confusion," Plummer said. "To have him do this across the board is a great direction to go."