The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the saying goes. It’s been a month since ‘Unlock 1.0’ was announced with much fanfare by the government. While it may have been meant to inspire a certain confidence in people, the situation on the ground doesn’t seem all that different. Despite the Delhi government taking its cues from the Center’s guidelines, allowing restaurants to resume dining-in at limited capacity, timings and a slew of other safety regulations, most stand-alone and upscale chains didn’t grab the opportunity.
Unlike MNCs such as McDonald’s and other fast food brands, most mid to upper-scale restaurants continue to operate only delivery and take-away, leery of opening too soon. “We were busy getting prepared to ensure complete safety of our patrons and colleagues. The guidelines are extensive, and as such the deep cleaning, the purchasing of new equipment and paraphernalia, and most importantly, the training of team members were some of the things that took the most time, which is why only now that we’re starting dining-in,” says Massive Restaurants’ Zorawar Kalra, whose Farzi Café outlet in Aerocity just opened on July 7, while his eclectic Thai restaurant Bo Tai will re-open in Delhi on July 9.
“The fact that the curfew is now till 10:00 pm instead of 9:00 pm as it was earlier, also helped us make the move,” adds Kalra, noting that the two spaces are a litmus test to gauge when the company should open the remaining outlets. Indeed, as a recent round of restaurants in Connaught Place, the heart of the city showed us, that while more places have definitely opened, there isn’t exactly a beeline of diners waiting to go in. The situation is much the same in other parts of the National Capital Region.
For instance, only a fraction of Lite Bite Foods’ many restaurants are open: namely YouMee in GK2 and four outlets of Punjab Grill, in Janpath, Noida, Saket and Khan Market. “Out of the four, the Saket outlet is fetching relatively higher footfall in terms ofdine-in service because it’s located in the mall. We recently did an intimate wedding lunch there a couple of weeks ago for 15 guests, adhering to all the appropriate guidelines. The majority of our dine-in customers are youngsters and young couples,” says Rohit Aggarwal, Director, Light Bite Foods.
Admitting that post-Unlock hasn’t been motivating, Aggarwal says that sales are currently at around 20 per cent of what they were pre-COVID, of which a quarter is dine-in orders, and the rest deliveries.
“We have been doing a surprisingly high number of deliveries, more from earlier in fact, but it can still never replace the experience of dining out,” says Vikrant Batra, of popular chain Café Delhi Heights, which has opened seven of its outlets since the middle of June, with plans to open five more across Delhi-NCR over the next 10 days.
“After re-opening, I have been treating my business like a start-up once again, like I did when I started the first CDH outlet, 10 years ago. Post-COVID is a new business reality and we have to approach it with new modalities and methods,” says Batra, who says that the steadily increasing number of guests over the past couple of weeks has been giving him hope.
Currently, last orders still have to be taken by 8:30-8:45pm, in order to allow the staff to also return home before the 10:00pm deadline. Keeping this in mind, Batra says, “Hopefully, once the Central government lifts the curfew and allows us to operate up to our normal timings of 12:00-1:00am, and lifts restrictions on liquor sales, I am pretty confident that the dining scene will, if not return to normal, at least give the industry a sense of hope for the future.” Here’s hoping indeed.
New Business for a New Reality
Restaurants have been busy with the minutiae of deep cleaning, the purchasing of new equipment and other paraphernalia, as well as the training of team members and more, as more eateries are ready to start dining-in in the coming days and weeks