Earlier this week, the Haryana state government announced a curfew between 9 pm and 5 am “with immediate effect”. It added this would remain in force “till further orders”.
Restaurant owners in the city, especially in Gurgaon, let up a collective cry of despair. It has been barely a few months that they restarted business with great difficulty after almost half a year of lockdown. Just as green shoots of business were emerging from the cemented sidewalks of losses, this announcement jolted them badly.
According to Surendra Singh, a Gurgaon-based restaurateur, sales and footfalls had dropped by 70-80% since March 2020. “We get most of our customers late in the evening. That is usually when people heading home from work, or those at home wanting a change of atmosphere, stop for a bite. With the limited hours, we barely have any scope to do business right now,” he stated.
Akshay Chauhan, Owner of Boombox BrewStreet resonated this point of view. As a nightclub and bar, it gets 90% of its business after 8PM. He is worried that he might end up joining the ranks of F&B establishments forced to shut operations after March 2020.
According to various sources, over 30% of F&B outlets permanently downed shutters last year. “There is no support from the government’s end. We submitted our excise records in March and haven’t received any benefits for the 49-day fees that we paid,” Chavan stated.
SOUNDING THE DEATH KNELL
One reason why restaurateurs are concerned about the limited timings is because they often take large business loans on high interest rates to manage their operations. They also pay astronomical rents, especially in locations that have good footfalls, like DLF Cyberhub or Udyog Vihar in Gurgaon.
Singh explained, “This situation will affect the entire ecosystem as we might not make enough revenues to pay rents or our employees.” Chavan added that many restaurateurs were forced to pay from their own capital to manage business for the past two quarters. “In this quarter, we were able to generate some revenue. But the curfew has made things difficult,” he noted.
Maninder Kolhi, owner of Sant Bhavan said the industry hoped that the government would support them by cancelling the license fees for one year. “This would have helped us to pay our staff’s salaries and manage various overheads,” he stated. However, the curfew has dashed these hopes.
Moreover, even landlords are unwilling to relent and subsidise rents, which is adding to their conundrum. Talking about how restaurant owners are attempting to balance existing operating expenditure with restricted operational timings, Chavan that it was next to impossible. “We are not able to manage the existing operational timings, because during the summer people do not come out in afternoons to eat or drink,” he pointed out.
Given the present situation, most restaurateurs have given up any hopes that their business will start breaking even in 2021. They are hoping that the curfew is relaxed soon, so that they can at least some losses of the entire year and make profits in the coming year. Until then, it is just a matter of survival.
