“Time for the last order.” Gentle reminders about the night curfew, from staff to diners, are back at restaurants.
Each such prod is a welcome sign for restaurateurs.
The new year arrived with a new set of curbs to check the fresh surge in Covid infections driven by the Omicron variant. A 50 per cent cap was enforced on eateries and a night curfew was imposed from 10pm. Both the curbs are still on.
Over the next fortnight, enforcement of the curbs was the last thing on the minds of owners and staff of restaurants. Because there was hardly any diner inside.
Many owners had told this newspaper that by 8pm, the tables were as empty as thin air.
But over the past two weeks, things have started to look up, thanks to a dip in the number of infections and a general perception that the new variant is milder than its predecessors.
Although far from the frenzy that the run-up to the New Year had been witnessing, the signs of revival were unmissable, said restaurateurs.
“The footfall is not back to where it was. But people have started eating out. Weekends are quite busy,” said Rajiv Kothari, the owner of Bar-B-Q on Park Street.
Only a handful of parking slots were vacant on Park Street around 8pm on Friday.
A waiter at Oasis restaurant summed up the mood.
“Immediately after the curbs, one or two people would still drop in for a quick lunch. But we dreaded the evenings. There would be not a single guest and we would spend time fidgeting on our phones or watching TV,” he said.
On Saturday, he was busy throughout the dinner, serving drinks and food. “A family walked in at 8.30pm. I reminded them politely that they had an hour,” he said.
Diners outside Mocambo restaurant on Friday night. Picture by Gautam Bose
Restaurant owners are hoping for a relaxation in the curbs starting next month.
One association of restaurant owners has already written to the chief secretary,
seeking resumption of “normal business hours” from February 1.
“Normal means time till midnight. The load of cases is going down gradually. A large section of Kolkatans have already been infected and recovered. If the curbs are relaxed, more people will come for dinner,” said a member of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India.
Early diners were also back, said restaurant owners.
Around 7.30pm on Saturday, there were close to 10 people waiting outside Peter Cat.
Bar-B-Q and Mocambo were also reasonably full.
“Initially, people got intimidated by the high rate of daily infections. But gradually, with the dipping graph, they have learnt to adjust. People who would not feel hungry before 9pm were now reaching their favourite restaurants at 7pm to make the most of the next couple of hours,” said Anjan Chatterjee, veteran restaurateur who owns over a dozen outlets in the city.