"The usual Friday night goes here at the Golf Club for dinner, then Mahogany's at the Stuart Hotel for a dance and maybe some karaoke, and onto Kirby's for the late crowd," Katherine Country Club head chef Emma Fitzpatrick said.
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All three venues will open their doors for the first time since March this Friday at noon with strict social distancing measures.
The Golf Club will only allow bookings from members, hotel guests and 'bonafide travellers' to keep numbers down this weekend, but staff remain unsure what to expect.
"People are definitely really excited to come back and it sounds like we'll be close to booking out Friday night," Ms Fitzpatrick said.
"We've had plenty of calls from Darwin and the communities but also I'm sure a lot of people from Katherine will go away for the long weekend.
"We strongly encourage people to book because we do expect there will be a line out the door given the restrictions we're still under.
"But really this isn't something we've ever done before to open with social distancing restrictions so we just don't know what'll happen," she said.
While patrons no longer have to order food in order to receive a drink, mingling between groups and tables is still disallowed and venues will be closely monitoring social-distancing.
COVID-19 and liquor licensing officers are also expected to be in town to keep both venues and their customers in line.
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Roughly 25 locals have been welcomed back to work across the three venues in a boost for the local job market, with Kirby's also advertising three job positions still to be filled.
Katherine Hotel co-owner Cassandra Harney says they're happy to be back and will have their usual DJ from 10pm, but people need to be responsible to make it work.
"It's great to be back but it is still going to be different, we can usually fit in 600 people where as now we can only do 85 inside and 110 outside," she said.
"It'll be first in best dressed and people have to be maintaining their social distancing or it won't work.
"We've hired extra security for the evening who will be monitoring that and the head counts to make sure things run safely on the night," Ms Harney said.
Stuart Hotel will have a DJ playing House music from 8pm until midnight, but haven't yet set a date for their restaurant to return.
"We're allowed 140 people in compared to our usual 350 so it's still a fair way off normal," bar manager Tymara Blenkiron said.
"It's going to be good, I know for a fact people a re dying to get out and have some social interaction again.
"We really don't know what to expect so we're just being careful in how we set things up, and it'll still be a real learning curve for everyone to get used to it I'm sure," she said.
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