KOLKATA: The city eateries have witnessed unprecedented footfall and business starting from Panchami. Most of the restaurants registered their best puja sales post Covid between Oct 8 and 12 (Panchami to Nabami). From food streets like Park Street, Chinatown and Southern Avenue to malls, bars and restaurants everywhere had crowds till well past midnight. Even Sector V restaurants clocked unusually high footfall, which they did not anticipate.
The president of Hotel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India (HRAEI) and owner of Songhay, Manthan and MS Bar & Lounge, Sudesh Poddar said some hotels had bar-closing licence till 12 am but had to keep the establishments open till 2 am for food as a lot of customers had been waiting. “This was the best sales since Covid. There were several late-night visitors and, interestingly, a lot of them were families. We don’t usually see this during puja as our area is not a typical pandal-hopping destination,” he said.
The owner of Peter Cat, Mocambo and Peter Hu? on Park Street, Nitin Kothari, agreed that this year’s puja business was the best post Covid. “People were waiting till 2 am at all our restaurants. We were open till 2.30 am on all puja days,” he said.
The chairman of Speciality Restaurants, Anjan Chatterjee, who has brands like Mainland China, Oh! Calcutta, Haka, Café Mezzuna, Asia Kitchen, among others, said, “A kind of revenge eating happened during puja.”
Jonathan Yeh, the owner of Kafulok in Chinatown, one of the oldest restaurants there, said the restaurant was open till 2 am on all puja days. Debaditya Chaudhury, director of Chowman, Oudh 1590 and Chapter 2, said, “The sales took a dip pre-puja but attained a peak since Saptami. We had to extend our operations till 3 am every day.” The partner of Opium Bar & Restaurant in Sector V, Moloy Dutta, admitted it lost business during puja as it took a late-closing licence for the bar up to 1 am. “There was a crowd at the bar even after 1.30 am but we had to refuse them,” he said.
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