Sarah Palin, who has not been vaccinated against the coronavirus, dined indoors Saturday night at Elio’s, an Italian restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that regularly draws celebrities, despite New York City’s requirement that all indoor guests show proof of vaccination. She tested positive for the virus on Monday.
“We just made a mistake,” said Luca Guaitolini, a manager of the restaurant, who was out of work Saturday night but confirmed Ms. Palin’s visit. He said the restaurant checked vaccination cards for all new customers, but not regular customers who come every week, and that Ms. Palin had dinner with a patron, whose name he declined to name.
“She probably just walked in and sauntered over to the table,” Mr. Guaitolini said. “We are trying to get to the bottom of this.”
The lawyers of Mrs. Palin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr Guaitolini said the restaurant notified customers that they had been exposed to the coronavirus and that staff would be tested this week.
Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska who ran for vice president in 2008, had traveled to New York to trial her defamation lawsuit against DailyExpertNews. The trial was supposed to begin this week, but due to her positive test result, it will now begin on February 3. According to the judge in the case, Ms Palin’s lawyers reported that she had undergone three Covid tests, all of which came back positive, and that she had not been vaccinated.
Shawn McCreesh, an article writer for New York Magazine, tweeted Monday that he had seen Mrs. Palin at Elio’s over dinner on Saturday night. (“My mom thought she was Tina Fey,” he said wrote in a follow-up tweet.)
Brian Schwartz, a political finance reporter at CNBC, tweeted that he had also recently eaten at the restaurant and that the staff there had failed to verify his vaccination status.
New York City registered 8,914 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, according to a Times database, 19,634 fewer than the Sunday before. Hospital admissions, which are lagging, are up 106 percent in the past two weeks.
In light of the highly contagious Omicron variant, some restaurants have imposed stricter safety measures for employees than the government requires, including keeping Covid tests on hand and strictly enforcing the wearing of masks. But at many of these restaurants, including Elio’s, the only requirement for diners is to be vaccinated.
Opened in 1981 on Second Avenue on East 84th Street, Elio’s is known for its famous clientele, including Tom Hanks, Joan Didion, and Mick Jagger. An obituary for the restaurant’s founder, Elio Guaitolini, who died in 2016, described the place as “an informal clubhouse for Manhattan’s social and media elite.”
His son, Mr. Guaitolini, said Ms. Palin is “a controversial person wherever she goes. I just hope she has a speedy recovery.”
