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New 8pm deadline for home delivery brings Ludhiana restaurants back in business
Restaurants and hotels only offering dine-in services urge government to ease curbs and allow them to serve at 50% capacity
Now allowed to deliver food till 8pm instead of the earlier 12pm deadline, the city’s restaurant sector has finally heaved a sigh of relief.
Already facing mounting losses due to low footfall amid the Covid pandemic, restaurant businesses have been struggling to stay afloat since the 17-hour curfew was imposed in the district on May 10, limiting their hours of operation to 5am to 12pm.
From Monday onwards, the district administration pushed their home delivery deadline to 8pm and also extended the curfew relaxation hours to 5am to 1pm, allowing take-away service for eight hours.
The relaxation also came as a boon for delivery boys, whose daily earnings had depleted with customers unable to place home delivery orders after noon.
Restaurateurs are now also seeking permission to open dine-in services at 50% capacity to help them cover their fixed expenses.
“Restaurants were unable to even meet the fixed costs to keep their businesses running with the 17-hour curfew in place. Now that the administration has allowed home delivery till 8pm, around 50% business may return in the coming days. Yet, as dinner hours are usually till 10pm, further relaxation is needed,” said Bhupinder Basant, owner of Basant Restaurants, and senior vice-chairman, Punjab State Traders Board.
Meanwhile, representatives of the city’s restaurant and hotel industries also said that the administration’s decision will only benefit certain outlets that offered home delivery, while those depending on dine-in customers were still out of business.
“Those offering only dine-in will continue to suffer. We will take up the matter with the government to allow restaurants to host customers at 50% capacity, else the restaurant and hotel sector will collapse,” said Amarvir Singh, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association, Ludhiana.
Proprietor of Club 69ML, Bhanu Ahuja said,”We cannot open our premises, as our business mostly depends on customers wishing to dine in during dinner hours. With negligible footfall before noon, it has become almost impossible to cover our expenses and salaries.”
