Madison restaurants offer traditional takeout for St. Patrick's Day

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, also known as the novel corona virus, some Madison restaurants allowed for takeout orders on Tuesday.

Nicholas Zabel with Dexter’s Pub and his coworkers cooked up 300 pots of corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day.

"The response has been pretty outrageous. I think we're going to go through some corn beef and cabbage today," Zabel said.

Due to new regulations on restaurants related to covid-19, they've given customers the option to order the dish for pick up.

"Now it's just trying to figure out how to get people through here safely, and keep people apart and get the food out."

Across town, the Copper Top Family Restaurant is in a similar mindset.

"Right now we're mainly going to do more take-out," Gentiana Jonuzi of Copper Top family restaurant said.

Jonuzi's family offered takeout meals and limited dining throughout the morning.

"This year we're taking a lot more safety precautions to make sure that the food is safe and good to eat," Jonuzi said.

Jonuzi and Zabel said they couldn't do this without the community standing behind them.

"This is what my family depends on,” Jonuzi said, “so having people come in here and say 'we support you during these tough times' means a lot to my family and [me]."

"We have a great clientele here," Zabel said. "We might not have enough corned beef right now!"

Later on Tuesday, Dexter's sold out of its corned beef and cabbage in about 90 minutes.

Copper Top’s owner chose to close their doors until further notice, after Gov. Evers announced that all restaurants in the state could only offer takeout meals starting at 5 p.m. Tuesday.