Pinning hopes on weekend biz, restaurant owners welcome change in lockdown dates

KOLKATA: The changed lockdown dates for August has brought back some cheer for

restaurant

owners in the city. The new dates do not include Saturdays and Sundays, barring one instance of August 8, though there are two Fridays. Following

Unlock

1 in June, city restaurants resumed operation, but with seating restrictions and much lower footfalls.

The secretary of Hotels and Restaurants Association of Eastern India (HRAEI), Sudesh Poddar, who himself owns Manthan and Songhay, pointed out that the business of fine dining always depends on weekends and it is more so in these times. The weekends include Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. “If there was a lockdown on Saturdays and Sundays, then the business would have further suffered,” he added. According to Poddar, the weekends account for almost 55%-60% of sales of a restaurant in a week. “Even after Unlock, a majority of our business is being made from only weekends. It would have been better if liquor was allowed,” he said.

According to him, a majority of restaurants have yet to cross 30%-40% of the pre-Covid business.

The president of HRAEI Pranav Singh pointed out that bar-cum-restaurants have so far achieved only 30% of pre-Covid sales, and a large chunk of that is from weekends only. Kabir Azhar, director of Aminia, agreed with Poddar that it is good for restaurants that the lockdown dates do not include weekends much. “Our footfalls are growing and we are hoping for good business on the August 15 weekend. We have now reached 50%-55% of pre-Covid sales. For us, weekend sales are around 50% of the total week sales,” he added.

The chairman of Speciality Restaurants,

Anjan Chatterjee

, said that globally, weekends are the best contributors to the sale volume at fine-dining restaurants.

“We are operating our standalone Mainland China, as well as Mainland China in South City, Oh! Calcutta at Forum and Haka at City Centre, along with Mainland China and South City in Silver Spring. The weekends are good, though not on a par with the pre-lockdown days,” he added.

Nitin Kothari

, who owns restaurants like Peter Cat, said, “The new lockdown dates have brought some solace for our industry.” For Kothari, the last few Saturdays and Sundays have been good. Now we are operating at 50% occupancy and keeping open till 10.30pm,” he added. S Ramani, co-director of

6 Ballygunge Place Group

, said, “We serve Bengali cuisine and lunch is predominantly our main business, Saturday and Sunday mornings are very important.”