Restaurants, hotels in a fix over resuming dine-in facility

Bhubaneswar: Lack of clarity from the government on running of restaurants has put owners in a spot whether to run full-fledged dine-in facilities or not.

During unlock 3.0, the government had not mentioned dine-in as a result of which some opened their restaurants. But as crowd swelled, the government came up with a fresh circular that allowed only home delivery and takeaways only. This has now forced hotel and restaurant owners to do a rethink before allowing customers to sit-and-dine during unlock 4.0, announced by the state government on Monday for the month of September.

The recent order said, “Activities that are not specifically prohibited/regulated/restricted are allowed, subject to adherence to safety and health protocols and SOPs/guidelines issued by appropriate authorities.”

But in the absence of clarity, most standalone restaurants –from the beach town of Puri to capital Bhubaneswar to small towns in the state – remained shut and those that opened, didn’t allow people to sit inside and have lunch or dinner.

“A lot of money goes into operating restaurants in a full-fledged manner. In August, we allowed people to avail the restaurant services, but a few days later, we were asked to stop dine-in facility. To serve people, we have to prepare logistics accordingly and such abrupt closure hurt our earnings,” said city-based hotelier Debashis Patnaik.

The capital city has around hundred big hotels, which have been catering to guests since lockdown 2.0. The guests, who stay in hotel rooms, are only allowed to use the restaurant facility. Pilgrim town Puri allowed tourists to stay in hotels since unlock 1.0. There too, the restaurant is meant for in-house guests.

“We are still confused about whether to allow people to walk-in and have lunch or dinner inside the restaurants. We have kept the restaurant partially open as we are allowing only takeaways,” said Debashis Kumar, vice-president of Puri Hotel Association.

Puri town has more hotels than Bhubaneswar though the latter has several star hotels in comparison. While Puri has more than 400 hotels, the capital city has 250. As far as standalone restaurants (including budget ones) are concerned, Bhubaneswar has over 3,000 such facilities.

In small towns like Boudh, Balangir, Bhawanipatna, Nayagarh, Angul and Dhenkanal, many restaurant owners felt they would have to bear the wrath of the police if they open restaurants and allow people to sit and have food.

Amid the confusion, however, small hotels and restaurants catering have kept their facilities open and people were seen eating inside.

“It is the Day I of unlock 4.0 and as such very few people will step out due to coronavirus fear. However, the working class need food which we are doing,” said Santosh Mohanty, owner of a budget hotel in Bhawanipatna.

EoM