Hope on the menu for Jaipur restaurants on Day 1 | Jaipur News

JAIPUR: After the unlocking guidelines on Tuesday, restaurants and malls on Wednesday opened to limited crowds as the truncated business hours and government’s condition to allow 50% outlets failed to cheer up people who are still reluctant to chances with the virus.
More than the footfalls and business, for many outlet owners and restaurants it was day of hope for overcoming the hardships and living to fight another day.

Senior officials managing the malls said that they were unprepared for a reopening at a short notice.
“Even though we were allowed to open 50% capacity, only about 35% outlets could reopen. Outlets need time to clean, rearrange and restock, put their IT systems in order and prepare for Covid appropriate movement of people. Some of their employees have also gone home and they need times to come back. The outlets need at least 5-7 days to operate normally,” said Vikas Joshi, general manager of a popular mall in the city.
He said there were visitors, though in small numbers and many of them visited mobile and gadget stores for buying new phones or accessories.
For the restaurants also, it was also too short a time to mobilise all their resources, including staff, to start their normal operations though many reopened thinking that things will be in place on the go. But they said that restaurants get about 70-80% of their business from the dinner services and the current restrictions will prolong their return to normalcy.
Varun Behl, promoter of a leading restaurant chain in the city, said, “It’s very important to reopen. The restaurant industry has gone through very difficult times. Some may never reopen or see light of the day. All were desperate to restart and many did that today. But lunch services only make up for 20-30% of business. As we make progress, the restrictions on time should be relaxed for dinner services as well.”
Behl said that because people cannot go out for dinner, some are coming over for lunch. “However, the evening business cannot be replaced by the lunch services,” he added.
Ashish Sharma, another restaurateur, said that he did not expect the number of visitors he received on the first day of the reopening. “It was a bit surprise, but then people are a little desperate to go out and have food. This is reassuring and I can only hope for better days from now onwards,” said Sharma, who runs a new-age restaurant.