Pubs were not on the list, when the state government unveiled its list of businesses that could start trading again from Friday. But restaurants were.
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The stage 1 easing of restrictions for NSW has caused plenty of confusion inside hotels.
While the interpretation from the Australian Hotels Association is that pubs will be able to open their restaurants to 10 patrons, it has not been confirmed by the government.
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"Without knowing, I'd be interpreting that we can (open) the restaurant," Charlie Redman, the owner of Armidale's Railway Hotel said.
He said bookings would become the only way people could enter the venue due to the restriction on numbers.
But speaking to other local hotels, there was a belief that all pubs would remain closed until stage 3 of easing the restrictions.
"My understanding is it's via category and we're categorised as a hotel licence, and that's not a cafe or restaurant licence," White Bull owner and licensee, Pat Gurr, said.
Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall said the public health order had not been published yet, and would not happen until later this week.
When it is made public, before Friday's easing of restrictions, he said it would reveal more about what the it means for pubs.
Meanwhile, Australian Hotels Association CEO Stephen Ferguson said the road to re-opening the Australian economy seemed to be riddled with inconsistencies as to how different industries are treated.
"Hotels have been left blindsided by the announcement today they basically will not be able to re-open their businesses until stage three of the recovery process," Mr Ferguson said.
He said the roadmap to recovery measures announced by the federal government on Friday had not provided a plan to help pub and hotel operators who he said were being pushed to the wall by mounting debt and bills for their closed venues.
In Armidale, hotels have had to stand down some staff, or move them to other roles, during the shutdown period.
Mr Redman said the bottleshop at the Railway had continued to operate, which had helped keep some of his staff employed, then the kitchen reopened for takeaway meals.
"Our chef was working in the bottleshop for a few weeks before the kitchen was opened," he said.
"We had a few good spikes in weeks, when there was a bit of a rush on for alcohol. Overall it's been holding its own.
"We started our takeaway and delivery food last week, which has been fantastic."
At the White Bull, Mr Gurr said they trialled takeaway food, but it proved to be very difficult.
"We made a decision that until we can get at least a 50 per cent capacity it wouldn't be viable for us to open our kitchen," he said.
"You can't half turn on a grill. There's got to be some critical mass to make it commercially viable to reopen."
Meanwhile, Mr Gurr said hotels could not be described as being in hibernation because they still had expenses to pay.
"The rates are coming in, and the land tax is coming in, all the bills are piling up," he said.
"It costs roughly $30,000 a month for country hotels and the debt cliff keeps building up, so the sooner we can get open the better."
He said hotels could pubs could take measures that would allow them to reopen sooner.
"We were shut down on the 1.5m social distancing principle, and we believe we could open up safely enough with the encouragement and promotion of the COVIDSafe app."
Mr Gurr said as well as social distancing, measures would include increasing cleaning frequency, encouraging electronic payment rather than cash, and safe work practices.
"The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can reinstate our staff, who are anxiously waiting for us to reopen now and i think the community is to," he said.
