For Aditi Ira, hanging out with friends in a Dhanmondi café was quite a regular event. That was until mid-February, before the pandemic shutdown. She could not visit her favourite joint for the three months as it remained closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, reports bdnews24.com.
The seven-year-old café, Flavours Music, was established by SM Rajan. It is now facing uncertainty over the reopening. As he already lacks skilled workers, Rajan is also worried if he will have enough customers to visit when he reopens the outlet.
“We plan to reopen soon with a dine-in option. But it will reduce the seating capacity. We need to follow the health protocol for online delivery also. In fact, it’s not possible to survive only on online delivery,” Rajan said.
Rajan is worried about customer visits, an issue substantiated by his regular customer Aditi. “I’ll only visit if they follow the health protocols properly,” Aditi said.
Some other restaurants and cafés in the vicinity have opened but are facing a drop in customer visits.
Time Out, a 20-year-old restaurant with branches in the posh neighbourhoods of Gulshan and Banani, has rearranged the seating capacity to 40 percent, after it reopened the dine-in services on Jul 2, said owner Sangeeta Ahmed.
“We had to reduce the seating capacity to follow the health protocol. I don’t know how long we can continue the business in the present situation,” she said.
The government imposed a lockdown on Mar 26 in a bid to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. After 66 days in the lockdown, the offices and retail shops were allowed to reopen on May 30 on a limited scale.
Restaurants and cafés in parts of the capital, including Banani and Dhanmondi, became popular, especially among the youth, from the 1990s.
Sales declined for the restaurants in Gulshan and Banani in the immediate
aftermath of an unprecedented terror attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in 2016, while those in other areas remained largely unaffected.
The epidemic left a huge impact on restaurants that counted Tk 300 billion in annual sales in the pre-coronavirus period. Many of the owners now run the risk of going out of business, according to the Bangladesh Restaurant Owners Association.
While the association has around 4,000 members registered under two Dhaka City Corporations, many more food shops exist beyond their list. At least 900, 000 workers are employed to the sector across the country, while Dhaka has 100, 000 of them.
Restaurant owners and managers are facing trouble as most staff left Dhaka during the lockdown and they lost sales to a long closure of the business. Moreover, they need to pay the rent in time, while restaurant opening-hours are short, adding to their woes.
It will be hard to run the business if restaurants are allowed to remain open only until 7 pm. Food is a daily staple, and therefore, restaurants should not be considered as a general shop, they said.
Only 30 percent of their members were able to open the restaurants, said Khandaker Ruhul Amin, president of Bangladesh Restaurant Owners Association.
“Restaurants have higher sales in the evening. It will be very tough for us if we are ordered to close shop by 7 pm.”
They have requested the government to extend the opening hours to 12 am, just to be able to earn enough to pay the staff, he said.
The government decided to provide loans with 4.5 percent interest to the restaurateurs. But, when approached, banks said they did not receive any notice from the Bangladesh Bank, Ruhul Amin said.
“How will more than 30,000 restaurants and cafes across the country run their business without capital after such long shutdown?”
Restaurant workers expressed anxiety over the possibility of losing jobs at a time when the economy is battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The café is still running and I’m getting my salary. But I wonder how long the owner will continue to run the business with the number of customers gradually decreasing,” said an employee of Dhaka Fried Chicken in Mohammadpur.
Mohammad Russel, a staff in Rainbow Café in the same neighbourhood, expressed the same concern. He went back home to Narsingdi after the café closed three months ago. He now ekes out an existence on tiny earnings from selling masks and sanitisers on the streets.
“I came back to Dhaka hearing the café will reopen soon. I’ll go back if it doesn’t reopen. I’m not sure it’ll be possible for the owner to reopen, as it is unlikely for customers to show up,” he said.
As the pandemic compelled the people to remain inside the four walls of homes, online food delivery companies have seen a surge in orders in May and June, compared to March and April.
Online food orders plunged in the pandemic shutdown. Now the trend is looking up after the economy reopened as business loss narrowed to 40 percent in May and June from as much as 85 percent in March and April, according to Ibrahim Bin Mohiuddin, co-founder of Hungrynaki.com, a food delivery company. “We are receiving food orders more for the entire family than for individuals,” he said.
Joya Tasnim Rahman, a banker, said she used to order food online at least three times a week before the pandemic broke out. After a long pause, she resumed online orders.
“I ordered kacchi biriyani from Sultan’s Dine as they follow the health protocol,” she told bdnews24.com.
“We’re working closely with our restaurant partners and we prefer to follow the health protocols and hygiene rules properly while delivering the food to our clients,” said Ambrin Reza, CEO of Food Panda.
While most of the restaurants in the rich neighbourhoods follow the social distancing and health protocols, restaurants in other neighbourhoods, including Old Dhaka, Mohammadpur and Dhanmondi are not found to maintain it.
Nanna Biriyani, a traditional biriyani shop in Becharam Dewri in Old Dhaka, had no measures in place to ensure social distancing. A group of people were seen dining together. When approached, none of the staff agreed to speak on the issue.
“Many restaurants and cafés are not following health protocols. Most of them are not our members either. It would be helpful if the city corporation looks after the issue and closes down those without a trade licence,” said Ruhul Amin.
