Al­though the au­thor­i­ties have not closed down El Pecos on the Grill Lim­it­ed and El Pecos on the Go Mar­ket, the Health Au­thor­i­ty has re­quest­ed that the own­ers ob­tain fur­ther re­quire­ments from them with­in 14 days be­fore the busi­ness is re­opened.

In a me­dia re­lease on Sat­ur­day, El Pecos said that they have ful­ly co-op­er­at­ed with the au­thor­i­ties who have vis­it­ed the premis­es twice and as­sured the pub­lic that soon the pop­u­lar restau­rant and mar­ket­place will be re­opened.

“The au­thor­i­ties have not closed us down. The Health Au­thor­i­ty has re­quest­ed that we ob­tain fur­ther re­quire­ments from them with­in 14 days. To demon­strate our com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue work­ing with the au­thor­i­ties to­ward a COVID-free T&T, we have cho­sen to close our mar­ket­place op­er­a­tions un­til we un­der­stand what fur­ther re­quire­ments are now need­ed by the Health Au­thor­i­ty. We are con­fi­dent that all the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties will act in a man­ner that is fair and does not dis­crim­i­nate against El Pecos,” the es­tab­lish­ment said.

On Sat­ur­day, when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the es­tab­lish­ment it was closed. Around lunchtime sev­er­al dis­ap­point­ed cus­tomers ar­rived and then left ex­claim­ing that they hoped the restau­rant would re-open soon.

Po­lice vis­it­ed El Pecos on the Go Mar­ket on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, on Fri­day af­ter­noon af­ter a long line of peo­ple was seen out­side the es­tab­lish­ment. The po­lice, in a me­dia re­lease, de­nied clos­ing down the es­tab­lish­ment.

Cit­i­zen Union head Phillip Alexan­der who spoke to the me­dia along with El Pecos' co-founder Suzanne Ca­ma­cho on Fri­day gave the opin­ion that too many peo­ple re­spond­ed to the re­open­ing giv­en the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the brand.

Ca­ma­cho said they have fol­lowed all guide­lines and "what is good for one, should be good for all."

Alexan­der said if Kam Wah at Roy­al Palm Plaza, Mar­aval, which was pre­vi­ous­ly a Chi­nese restau­rant could be con­vert­ed in­to a mar­ket­place, why can't El Pecos do the same.

El Pecos, orig­i­nal­ly a restau­rant, was con­vert­ed in­to a gro­cery last week and is now sell­ing su­per­mar­ket prod­ucts as well as pre-pack­aged meals. This comes as many restau­rants and oth­er es­tab­lish­ments which sell lunch­es are fac­ing fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties af­ter be­ing closed and re­opened sev­er­al times since the pan­dem­ic hit.

“El Pecos on the Grill Lim­it­ed and El Pecos on the Go Mar­ket Lim­it­ed, ful­ly sup­port all ef­forts to flat­ten the COVID-19 curve and keep the peo­ple of T&T safe. We have com­plied ful­ly with all reg­u­la­tions in place from the on­set of the COVID 19 pan­dem­ic,” the me­dia re­lease said.

In the me­dia re­lease, El Pecos fur­ther stat­ed that there has been a lot of so­cial me­dia at­ten­tion on the open­ing of El Pecos on the Go Mar­ket and said the own­ers have con­sult­ed with and had the ben­e­fit of le­gal ad­vice and based on that ad­vice they not­ed that:

1. The law clear­ly per­mits the op­er­a­tion of su­per­mar­kets, gro­ceries, mar­kets, green­gro­cers, bak­eries pro­vid­ed that not more than 50 per cent of the es­tab­lish­ments or­di­nary re­tail ca­pac­i­ty is sur­passed at any time dur­ing op­er­a­tion hours

2. They opened their doors as a mar­ket­place in full com­pli­ance with the law, all the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions, and ob­serv­ing all pro­to­cols to keep our staff and cus­tomers safe

3. The fact that sev­er­al oth­er in­sti­tu­tions such as gas sta­tions, phar­ma­cies, su­per­mar­kets, well-known food re­tail­ers and mar­ket­places have been al­lowed to con­tin­ue sell­ing pre-pack­aged to-go meals

4. They in­cor­po­rat­ed a sep­a­rate com­pa­ny for El Pecos on the Go Mar­ket Lim­it­ed for the mar­ket­place busi­ness to com­ply with the COVID-19 Le­gal No­tice reg­u­la­tions

5. They have re­con­fig­ured to es­tab­lish a mar­ket­place in com­pli­ance with san­i­ta­tion pro­to­cols that are in use in oth­er in­sti­tu­tions that have been per­mit­ted to re­main open and sell pre-pack­aged food

6. El Pecos on the Grill was one of the ear­li­est com­pa­nies that gave cus­tomers the con­ve­nience of se­lect­ing their food and pay­ing by the pound. The com­pa­ny recog­nis­es that cus­tomer de­mands have evolved and changed, and El Pecos on the Go Mar­ket Lim­it­ed has cre­at­ed a new mod­el to re­spond to these cus­tomer ex­pec­ta­tions in a safe and se­cure en­vi­ron­ment.