Summary:
The Haryana government extended COVID restrictions in the state till June 14, while allowing restaurants and bars to reopen with certain conditions.
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In an order that came on Sunday evening, the Haryana government extended COVID restrictions in the state till June 14, while allowing restaurants and bars to reopen with certain conditions.
As per the order, restaurants and bars in Gurgaon (including those in hotels and malls) are allowed to open from 10am to 8pm with 50% occupancy, while adopting social distancing norms, regular sanitisation and COVID-appropriate behaviour.
Before this, restaurants and bars were only allowed to open for takeaways and delivery.
While reopening of restaurants and bars is good news for restaurateurs, majority of them say that running operations till 8pm will make no sense as they cannot earn revenues by only opening for lunch hours.
Expect most lounge & bars in Gurgaon to open in July
Restaurateurs say that once they open bars and lounges, they’ll have to bear operational costs and pay rent.
However, the major revenue for bars and lounges comes from dinner hours, and restaurateurs say there’s no way they can earn with the strict deadline of 8pm.
“People aren’t even stepping out for grocery shopping right now, who would come to have a drink at a bar and lounge, that too, in the afternoon in summers?
It makes no business sense for us to open bars and lounges right now and incur more losses,” says Rajan Sethi, owner, AMPM Café And Bar at Cyber Hub and Galleria Market, who plans to open his outlets by the end of July.
Dinesh Arora, owner, Unplugged Courtyard at Udyog Vihar, says he can open his restaurant and lounge by July 15.
“We’ll diligently follow all COVID protocols, but we urge the authorities to allow us to run operations for our usual business hours.
This (current rules) puts us in a dilemma and it becomes tougher for us to negotiate with landlords.
We are more than eager to open outlets as we’ve had the worst two years of business, but these time restrictions put us in a difficult position,” says Dinesh.
Vishal Anand, Director, SAGA & Cafe Staywoke, Gurgaon, says, “We welcome this decision of opening restaurants and bars.
However, 70% of our business is from dinner operations, and opening till 8pm will not serve any purpose.
In fact, landlords will start charging us for opening the outlet, and at the same time, we’ll hardly be able to cover expenses without dinner operations.”
Dine-in outlets in Gurgaon expect increased footfall in lunch hours.
While bars and lounges are clear that reopening outlets with the time restriction of 8pm will only mean losses, the order is a welcome change for those running fine dining outlets.
Lunch hours in Gurgaon when restaurants in Delhi and Noida are only open for takeaways and delivery will mean big business for these outlets.