A Maryland restaurant purchased 'bumper tables' that look like giant inner tubes to keep customers 6 feet apart

• Fish Tales is adding a new dining experience to its bar and restaurant called "bumper tables." The tables are on wheels, and guests can move about freely in a six-foot inner tube.
• Maryland is gradually reopening, but restaurants and bars are only open for takeout and delivery. Once they can reopen to dine-in customers, Fish Tales will have guests use the "bumper tables."
• Revolution Events designed the tables in response to the coronavirus and experienced a surge of interest after the design was unveiled.
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Fish Tales plans to seat guests in a novel way when it reopens. Customers at the Maryland restaurant will get their own "bumper table."

The table, designed for social distancing, is on wheels and features a giant inner tube. Working like bumper cars, the customers will remain six feet apart whenever two tubes hit.

"The whole idea is just to make people smile and give hope and do something fun," Donna Harman, the restaurant's owner, told Insider.

The Ocean City restaurant plans to have the tubes in a roped-off area of its parking lot. Harman purchased 10 tables and predicts that the area could hold up to 50.

Across Maryland, restaurants are open for takeout, but dining in is still prohibited. Once that changes, Fish Tales will reopen and incorporate the "bumper tables."

Harman said the business is overwhelmed by the response, and her team is still deciding on how the reservations will work for the tables.

Revolution Event Design & Production came up with the idea of the giant inner tubes as a response to the need for social distancing

Erin Cermak, the founder and CEO of Revolution, explained that events companies are rooted in creativity.

"We're very adept in rolling with the punches," Cermak told Insider. "And this was a big punch."

The coronavirus has taken a major toll on events and large gatherings, so the business' sales "ground to a complete halt."

"We had a lot of time on our hands to sort of reimagine what events are going to be like," Cermak said.

Cermak described that her favorite part of any event is a cocktail hour, which is often the most crowded part of an event. Her team started brainstorming ways to make bar spaces socially distant.

"In a bar setting, it's brilliant because you can go bump into someone and meet them and start talking," she said.

Cermak said they've used the rolling tables in the past and the tube added a fun element to the design.

—Camila Fernández (@CamilaFNews) May 18, 2020

On Saturday, the "bumper tables" were unveiled at Fish Tales. People wheeled around the parking lot. Since the tubes are 6 feet wide, no one could come too close to one another.

Fish Tales has the outdoor version of the "bumper tables," but Revolution Events has also designed an indoor version without the inner tube.

Cermak said businesses ranging from sporting leagues to ice-cream parlors have reached out to learn about how they could incorporate the "bumper tables."

• Read more:
• 10 ways restaurants are getting social distancing right
• From strip clubs to church confessionals, 14 photos show how places around the world are getting creative with drive-thru experiences
• A restaurant in Australia is placing cardboard cutouts at its tables in an attempt to make diners feel more comfortable
• A restaurant in Thailand placed stuffed pandas at its tables to keep diners company while social distancing

Read the original article on Insider