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Dine-ins off to slow start in Chandigarh
Cautious residents sticked to takeaways and home deliveries.
Cautious residents sticked to takeaways and home deliveries even as several restaurants in Chandigarh resumed dine-in services from Monday, following the administration’s nod.
Pal Dhaba in Sector 28, which normally sees a huge rush, saw virtually no dine-in customers today. Eatery owner, Amit Pal Singh, said, “The number of takeaway orders and home delivery requests were far more than dine-in customers. I suspect this is because people are still wary of stepping out.”
Sindhi Sweets proprietor Neeraj Bajaj, too, saw a lukewarm response. “I have outlets in Sectors 8, 17, 33 and 32. We received the best response in Sector 17, but there is still a long way to go,” he said.
The eateries in Sector 10, meanwhile, received a comparatively better response. Jannat Chadha, proprietor of Cafe JC’s, said that they had a promising start and their restaurant is now equipped with safety screen guards to ensure social distancing.
Hotels too got off to a slow start. Proprietor of Hotel Aroma in Sector 22, Manmohan Singh Kohli said that they didn’t expect the sales to be very high on the first day. “The important thing was to get started. We are hoping the sales will improve by this weekend.”
Meanwhile at Elante, movie theatres and restaurants remained closed and third floor of the mall wore a deserted look. Though other stores, such as those dealing in clothes, remained open, the mall saw hardly 10% of its normal footfall. The business remained slow too. Manager of the Westside store in the mall, Shah Nawaz, said, “We used to get between 2,000 to 3,000 customers a day but on Monday, we got only around 100 customers.” Store manager of Zara, Pavneet Kaur, said they have started a new policy to allow only 20 inside the store at a time.
Meanwhile, the impasse between restaurant owners and the Elante Mall regarding their rent agreements still remains unresolved.
In Panchkula, restaurant and hotel owners are still waiting for the administration to issue standard operating procedures (SOPs). “We are yet to receive the SOPs but we plan to resume services by June 11,” said Rohit Sharma, owner of Bisaat restaurant and Chugli cafe in Sector 5, Panchkula. The few restaurants that have already resumed operations also wore a deserted look.
