KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As the restau­rant in­dus­try bat­tles through the sev­enth month of COVID-19 re­stric­tions, sev­er­al own­ers say un­less the Gov­ern­ment eas­es re­stric­tions soon, low rev­enues may force them out of busi­ness by No­vem­ber. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will give an up­date on any pos­si­ble ease in pub­lic health mea­sures on Sat­ur­day.

How­ev­er, Trent Restau­rants Ltd CEO Pe­ter George says the eco­nom­ic im­pact has al­ready tak­en its toll.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, George said while he ac­knowl­edges T&T, like the world, is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a pub­lic health cri­sis, there is an eco­nom­ic and so­cial cri­sis at hand. He said the is­sue is not the re­stric­tions but the pro­longed pe­ri­od of not hav­ing cus­tomers din­ing at restau­rants. With sales not meet­ing ex­pen­di­ture, he said if Gov­ern­ment does not ease re­stric­tions, his com­pa­ny, which op­er­ates Bu­zo Os­te­ria Ital­iana, Trot­ters, Ama­ra and Tom­my’s Brew­ing Com­pa­ny, will have to de­cide which oth­er com­pa­nies to close. (See page 15)

He said this will re­sult in fur­ther job loss­es, as the com­pa­ny tem­porar­i­ly laid off ap­prox­i­mate­ly 45 em­ploy­ees when it closed its Blue Star Din­er in Sep­tem­ber. The com­pa­ny al­so in­vest­ed in open­ing Trot­ters at Gulf City Mall, San Fer­nan­do, on Au­gust 15, the same day Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the rein­tro­duc­tion of re­stric­tions.

“The in­dus­try is heav­i­ly af­fect­ed for the year and busi­ness­es are down by more than 70 per cent. Af­ter eight months of these re­stric­tions, it is very dif­fi­cult to con­tin­ue,” George said.

“The big­ger is­sue is not just that it last­ed over sev­en months but that it is go­ing to be two years of de­cline and the con­trac­tion may be one that is not re­cov­er­able. We do not know when the econ­o­my will re­cov­er and we heard the war sto­ries about restau­rants all over the world.”

He added, “We em­ploy over 300 peo­ple and the hos­pi­tal­i­ty and en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try; the restau­rants, the ho­tels, bars and clubs em­ploy about 80,000 peo­ple, all be­ing heav­i­ly af­fect­ed. The chal­lenge we face is re­al­ly be­neath the sur­face and af­ter eight months, if this does not change im­mi­nent­ly, I do not know if we can con­tin­ue. The loss­es are cat­a­stroph­ic.”

George said there was no spe­cif­ic sec­tor to blame and cur­tail­ing the virus was about in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“I think we did a good job in curb­ing the virus and now we have to say eight months lat­er, we have to learn to live with it. This virus could be here for an­oth­er year, three or ten. We have to live with it and bal­ance safe­ty and san­i­ty.”

He called for his­toric in­ter­ven­tion, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment should meet with banks to dis­cuss gov­ern­ment-backed, low-in­ter­est loans to help busi­ness­es re­cov­er to sus­tain­able lev­els.

But Trent Restau­rants is not alone.

Bal-Tar-Zzar Restau­rant di­rec­tor Bal Sawh said if Gov­ern­ment ex­tends din­ing re­stric­tions, he will have to con­sid­er the fu­ture of his Cou­va busi­ness.
“All I am do­ing right now is try­ing to stay afloat to keep my staff paid,” Sawh said yes­ter­day.

Not­ing cus­tomers pre­ferred in-house din­ing, Sawh said they too suf­fered a rev­enue short­fall of 60-70 per cent in the past sev­en months.

“It is not the same ex­pe­ri­ence, the so­cial­is­ing and the ca­ma­raderie you get with re­lax­ing with a meal. We re­duced staff and we have them on a ro­ta­tion so at least every­body gets a lit­tle bit. Per­son­al­ly, as pro­pri­etor, I have not been mak­ing mon­ey. All I can do is or­der stock and pay bills. I had to take out of my per­son­al sav­ings to keep afloat,” Sawh said.

As for the re­cov­ery of the restau­rant in­dus­try, Sawh be­lieves there should be some stim­uli, adding Gov­ern­ment could con­sid­er the tax­a­tion sys­tem on busi­ness­es and pay VAT re­funds on time.
One of South Trinidad’s most pop­u­lar restau­rants, Soong’s Great Wall, al­so re­port­ed a 70 per cent de­cline in busi­ness. The San Fer­nan­do restau­rant re­mains open for take­out and de­liv­ery ser­vices but pro­pri­etress An­na Soong-John­son said the sec­ond clo­sure had af­fect­ed them more than the first.

“We have nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing like this. The en­tire econ­o­my has been neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by the pan­dem­ic and the hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try is one of the worst-hit sec­tors,” Soong-John­son said.

“We are do­ing our best to ro­tate our ros­ters so every­one who wants to work can get a cou­ple of shifts in, but it has been chal­leng­ing with such a sig­nif­i­cant de­crease in busi­ness. Thank­ful­ly, our kitchen re­mains ful­ly staffed due to our take­away busi­ness. For the sake of our staff and our cus­tomers, we hope in­door din­ing re­turns in some ca­pac­i­ty – even with less­er ca­pac­i­ty.”

Co-own­er John­ny Soong, how­ev­er, said cit­i­zens’ safe­ty re­mains first and fore­most. 
“We con­tin­ue to be guid­ed by sci­ence and the lead­ers. It is not a nor­mal sit­u­a­tion, but we are very cog­nizant that it is about the preser­va­tion of life. We are not join­ing the line to say that we must open at all cost,” Soong said.
While some restau­rants ben­e­fit from the Christ­mas pe­ri­od, Soong be­lieves COVID-19 has di­min­ished peo­ple and com­pa­nies’ dis­pos­able in­come and it will take some time be­fore the econ­o­my re­cov­ers.