Mumbai restaurants, hotels get ready to welcome guests from Monday

As per the government guidelines, hotels and restaurants in Mumbai can reopen from October 5.

Preparations are in full swing in Mumbai hotels and restaurants to meet the requirements under the guidelines for reopening and welcoming guests from Monday, over six months after operations were first suspended in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic outbreak.

Several hotels have arranged transport to bring back their staff from other states. (HT Photo)

Testing staff for Covid-19 and training them to meet the requirements under the new standard operating procedure (SOP) for resumption of operations, sanitising of the premises, revision of menu, transport arrangement to bring outstation staff and revision of the seating arrangements to ensure social distancing, are some of the things keeping the hoteliers busy.

Take the case of the upmarket 1522--Bar and Kitchen at Andheri (East), which has prepared an exhaustive safety manual for its hotel staff.

“We are holding workshops for our staff from the last five days so that they can comply with the SOPs released by the government,” said Pratik Shetty, partner, of the facility.

The state government, while allowing hotels and restaurants to resume operations from September 5, has capped guest attendance to 50 percent of their existing capacity. In addition, it has stressed that hotels need to ensure the safety of their staff as well as their patrons.

Mirah Hospitality, which runs 10 hotels under the brand name Rajdhani, Hitchki and Bayroute in Mumbai, has arranged buses to bring back 100 staff members from Rajasthan. 800 staff members working in their outlets have to produce a Covid-19 negative test before rejoining.

“We are concerned with the health of our staff as well as of the consumers and are not ready to take any chances in this matter,” said Aji Nair, COO – food and beverages division, Mirah Hospitality.

The Pritam Group of Hotels is arranging buses as well as flight tickets to bring back their outstation staff. “We will keep the outstation staff in quarantine for a couple of days before they resume work,” said Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, director, Pritam Group of Hotels.

Many outlets are revising their menu to cut out a number of dishes to deal with low footfall and shortage of staff. 1522-Bar and Kitchen would have 45 dishes instead of the usual 80 as they will work in the restricted environment.

Many outlets are tweaking the seating arrangement to ensure at least one metre distance between two tables.

There are approximately 4 lakh hotels, restaurant and bars in Maharashtra.