Opening for sit-down service in violation of the state’s orders for counties in the yellow zone has given Bella Italia restaurant a virtual monopoly, but the owner wishes others would join him.

“I’m the only one holding the flag,” Antonio Serra­della said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I would love it (if others opened, too).”

Being the only restaurant offering dine-in service in the area has given him more business than he knows what to do with, he said.

“I’m insanely busy,” Serradella said. “I can’t keep up.”

He’s so busy he needs to close early sometimes, he said.

Others who run restaurants in the area are behind him, including managers of chain outlets who come to eat and high-five him, saying they’d be doing it themselves, if it weren’t for corporate ownership, Serra­della said.

Zach’s Sports and Spirits has another reason for hesitating, but has endorsed Serradella’s action publicly:

“We would like to recognize Bella Italia Pizza for so bravely being the first restaurant in our area to take a stand,” Zach’s states on its Facebook page. “If we knew that we would not be jeopardizing our liquor license by opening, we would be right there with you.”

While Serradella previously acknowledged the coronavirus was creating grave problems in some places, like Brooklyn, it’s not doing so here, he said.

“There ain’t nothing going on,” he stated.

If there was, “shouldn’t I be dead?” he asked rhetorically. “What, am I superhuman?”

Everybody around here agrees, he said, citing “thousands” of shoppers he saw recently in Walmart, which is permitted to be open.

“Yeah, a couple disagree,” Serradella conceded.

But he pointed to Lincoln Speedway in Adams County and a diner he used to patronize in another area as good examples of businesses that have opened despite prohibitions — while also citing the seasonal closure of a local amusement park as a disappointment.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.