Restaurants and gyms can accommodate more people today, following Oahu’s move to Tier 3 of its reopening plan. However, establishments are handling the loosening of restrictions in different ways.

The new tier allows gyms to operate at 50% capacity and restaurants at full capacity maintaining 6-foot distancing. Groups of up to 10 people can dine and fitness classes can teach up to 10 participants.

UFC Gym, which has locations in Kakaako, Kailua, Waikele and Mililani, planned to immediately increase from 25% capacity to 50%.

“Our equipment, and everything else, throughout the gym is already spaced out, 6 feet apart,” said Darlene Kaku, UFC Gym’s Hawaii director of marketing.

The gym has generally been able to accommodate customers without requiring sign-ups, except during peak hours of the day, where some people may have to wait outside.

Kaku expected that process to continue to work even with the increased capacity.

She noticed after the announcement about Tier 3 on Tuesday that many members who had frozen their accounts during the pandemic reached out to restart their membership.

“We’re just relieved,” Kaku said.

“We can definitely see from the responses already, the phone calls and the social media comments, that people are excited to come back.”

However, expanded opening is not as easy for fitness centers that are class-based, such as yoga studios like Yoga Room in Kaimuki.

The yoga studio opened in October, thinking it could operate at 25% capacity like open-floor gyms, but realized class sizes could only accommodate four participants and one teacher.

Yoga Room owner Paula Colletti was happy to be able to expand to nine- person classes, but did not understand why the 50% capacity rule did not apply to class-based studios.

“Maintaining social distancing, we can fit 21 students in the room,” she said.

“When we see things like restaurants being able to open without capacity limits and 10 people, possibly from different households at one table without a mask on, it’s a little challenging for us to figure out why that can be permitted but we can’t socially distance and wear masks and be safe and offer fitness.”

Sweat and Soul, a barre fitness studio that teaches classes using a ballet barre, was in a similar predicament.

With 6-foot distancing, the studio could fit about 12 people per class instead of just the mandated nine, plus an instructor.

However, owner Melissa Rota wanted to expand slowly, starting today with only eight people per class and one instructor.

“We have everyone set up about 8 to 10 feet apart always and making sure our staff or teacher in class also has space around them,” she said.

Another establishment taking the transition slowly is O’Kims restaurant. Its owner, Hyun Kim, said it will continue to just use its limited outdoor seating.

“I’m going to wait a little more to open up everything,” she said. “We have kind of a lot of takeout orders. I want to be able to take care of our takeout customers.”

Meanwhile, restaurants such as Aloha Beer Company will increase its capacity by 40 seats starting today, bringing its total occupancy to about 190 people at a time.

“We can set up a lot of underutilized tables that seat five or six, and then a couple tables that can seat up to eight,” bar manager Roberto Cruz said. “For us, it’s kind of big.”

However, Cruz, along with the Hawaii Restaurant Association, hoped that alcohol sales would be allowed beyond 10 p.m.

He said even an extra hour on a Friday or Saturday could mean an extra $1,000 in revenue.

Mayor Rick Blangiardi will submit modifications of Tier 3 to Gov. David Ige and did not confirm whether extending alcohol sales would be included when asked during a news conference on Monday.

As for golf under Tier 3, city officials said Wednesday there is no difference between Tier 2 and Tier 3. The city’s oneoahu.org web site says golf restrictions will move from Phase 2.5 under Tier 2 to Phase 3 under Tier 3, but so far the city has not come up with a Phase 3 plan for golfers. Without that, the restrictions on golf will remain the same.