As restaurants around the country slowly begin to reopen their doors and start the recovery process, we salute chefs and restaurateurs like BC Restaurant Hall of Fame member Rod Butters, one of the culinary dynamos behind Kelowna’s @RauDZ Regional Table restaurant, Sunny's Modern Diner, tapas bar Micro and the Okanagan Table catering outfit.

This Friday, May 29, Butters and his team will get to enjoy some of those things they’ve been missing when they reopen Sunny's Modern Diner at 7:30 a.m. Next Wednesday, June 3, they’ll follow suit at Micro.

Well, you know. In a somewhat limited capacity, but STILL! Patios! Dining rooms! Masks! Plexiglass! Sanitizer! Okay, those last three things aside, we’re SO EXCITED that some of our favourite hotspots in Cowtown are riding high again.

Thanks to Daniel Ball and our good friends at Eat North for compiling and updating a list of just some of the small and independent cafes, bars, breweries and restaurants that are back at it this week. See who is open for business:

Great little short-‘n-sweet post by Ash Kurtz, Chef de Cuisine at award-winning Vancouver Québécois-inspired restaurant St. Lawrence, which is reopening its doors to limited numbers of dine-in guests once again this week.

“New puzzle to put together this week,” Kurtz wrote. “Re-opening @stlawrencerestaurant Thursday night. Amidst all of this chaos, I consider myself lucky to be able to work amongst such talented, hard-working individuals. If there is a silver lining to COVID-19 for us, it’s that it’s given us a chance to slow down a few notches and reset. New directions have come to light. So to all my friends and acquaintances in this ever-changing industry, stay positive and push on!”