Pubs, restaurants face unexpected expenses

As they reopen, they book air tickets for returning staff and buy new plants to restore their gardens

Restaurateurs are looking at new expenses as they resume business after a pandemic break of five months. Takeaways were always allowed, but restaurants got permission to allow diners in only from August.

Many bills are totally unexpected. For example, Raahi Neo Kitchen & Bar in Ashok Nagar had to get a new set of indoor plants when they reopened on September.

Aman Dua, beverage head, says, “The gardener couldn’t come regularly to water the plants so we lost a lot of them. We have a green wall behind the bar area and it had to be replaced with new plants.”

Chethan Hegde, founder of 1522 and 1Q1, employs about 300 people across his outlets. Quite a few had returned to their hometowns, and he had to pick up the tab for air tickets for 80 of them.

The rest had remained in Bengaluru. “We have been taking care of their rent and expenses in the last couple of months and are providing new accommodation for the returnees,” he says.

Aggregators

Delivery aggregators such as Swiggy and Zomato take about 20 to 25 per cent of a restaurant’s billing. “Since only takeaways were allowed, we had to tie up with them and get out business moving,” says Hegde. “But that takes a financial toll.” Packaging material is adding to costs. Restaurants now use only FSSAI-approved packaging. “This affects the pricing and so the frequency of ordering comes down,” he says.

More sanitation

Tanai Shirali, senior director - operations of JSM Corporations (owning restaurants Hard Rock Cafe and Shiro) has invested in sanitation and cut down on the number of tables.

“Before the pandemic, we used to fumigate the restaurants every couple of months. Since we were closed for a while, we ensured that there was thorough work done before we reopened,” he says.

Digital revolution

Almost every fine-dine and speciality restaurant has gone digital: they have QR codes for their menus.

Anirudh Nopany, co-founder of Brik Oven, says, “Thankfully we’ve already had a website which had our menu on it. There are websites to generate a QR code to link to the website. We saved on hiring anyone to help us in that regard as we did it on our own.”

Half of everything

According to new rules, restaurants can function only with 50 per cent seating which, without a doubt, reduces the number of people coming in.

However, restaurateurs say they can’t cut down on staff. Tanai says, “Since sanitation is top priority now, we need more hands to keep everything clean. It’s hard to work with half the staff.”