This Puja, Calcuttans ate out like never before, said restaurateurs.
Many restaurants had to remain open till early morning to serve guests who had been waiting for dinner. Even then, many diners could not be allowed in because of the rush.
The festive season rush also blurred the line between eateries that thrived on volume and fine-dining joints, which also remained open till the wee hours unlike even the pre-Covid times.
“People came out with a vengeance,” said Nitin Kothari, veteran restaurateur and owner of Mocambo and Peter Cat in Park Street. The rush was something that even Kothari, who has been in the trade for over five decades, did not remember seeing.
“This year’s volume has surpassed that of 2019, by some margin. People had been locked indoors for such a long time. Many had adjusted their eating habits after restaurants reopened with curtailed timings. This Puja was an opportunity to go back to their preferred eating habit,” he said.
Right from Sashthi to Dashami, his restaurants were brimming with people. The average waiting time for lunch was an hour. The restaurants served liquor till 1am and food beyond 2.30am on all the Puja days.
Diners outside Aminia restaurant in Hatibagan at 2.30am on Navami Telegraph picture
A new restaurant owned by Kothari, Peter Hu? opened on October 13. It also did brisk business, he said.
Shiladitya Chaudhury, the owner of Oudh 1590, said all eight outlets of the chain remained open till at least 3am.
“This was one of the best Pujas in terms of business.”
Long waiting time was common outside restaurants across the city. Most restaurateurs said it was not possible to implement the 50 per cent cap inside because of the rush.
Ranadeep Mukherjee, 36, a Jadavpur resident, had planned a Saptami dinner with a group of friends. They reached Tangra around 8pm.
The next 45 minutes were a frantic search for a place that would at least give a feasible waiting time. But they could not find any. “The waiting time at one place was two-and-a-half hours; at another, a man at the doors said he would take at least 30 minutes to say if a table would be available over the next couple of hours; at a third place, waiters said dining inside was not an option,” said Mukherjee.
The group finally went to a resto-bar in Salt Lake Sector V. They had to wait for 30 minutes before they found a table.
The reduced fear of Covid because of vaccines and the bar on entering pandals have played an important role in driving the footfall at restaurants, said owners. The government’s relaxation of the night curfew and allowing eateries to enjoy the same leeway opened the doors for the surge in footfall, they said.
Kabir Azhar of Aminia Restaurants is not unfamiliar with straying open well beyond midnight during the Puja. But the rush this year stumped him as well. “Our outlets in Hatibagan, Behala, Nager Bazar and Rajarhat, closed at 5am on Ashtami and Navami,” he said.
There was rush everywhere, from street joints to fine-dining outlets. “People came out like they had been jailed for a long time. It was like revenge spending. We thank the government for lifting the curbs,” said Aditya Ladsaria, the co-founder of Chai Break and the president of the Calcutta chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India.