Restaurants Remain Empty Despite Unlock: Some Shut Down Permanently, Other 30% Stare At The Bleak Future

While the central government has reduced lockdown restrictions between the pandemic coronavirus, the restaurants industry is yet suffering the economic fallouts of the COVID-19 outbreak with only one in all five restaurants operating in the country presently. 

In fact, the entire industry is operating at only a fraction of the range it was working before coronavirus days, according to a lately issued report by online food delivery platform Zomato. “Dining out the industry in India is still to jump back and to serve at 8-10% of pre-COVID levels.

Even in cities where constraints have been raised, only 17% dining out restaurants are open for business at the time which is also working at low capacity,” the report published on Wednesday stated. The fear among the people due to the COVID-19 pandemic won’t lead them to dine out

The fear of public spheres is moving raised amid consumers despite the possibility of economic activities. The drop for the restaurant industry is also on record of markets being in lockdown. Various restaurants have also decided not to open up but, even if their particular city is not in lockdown, the report stated. 

For example, while major cities such as Delhi, and Chennai have approved restaurants to reopen business operations for dining out, only 9 per cent of eating chains are open in Chennai, 29% in Kolkata, 21% in Hyderabad, 19% in Bengaluru, and 12% in Delhi. There are numerous restaurants that are never going to reopen as a result of the damage caused by the novel coronavirus.

The bad news here persists that some of the restaurants may never begin again with 10% restaurants studied by Zomato already shut down. In comparison, an added 30% of restaurants are at risk of shutting down in the near future. 

“Of the 83% restaurants that are not resuming their business, 10% have already closed down forever, and we expect an extra 30% restaurants not to resume at all. Prevailing 43% are closed right now but expected to open, as the condition shifts better,” the report stated. We can hope the recovery of the restaurant industry in the upcoming two to three months.

While dine-out business is restrained, a light of hope is given by Zomato’s food-delivery company that is now timing 75-80% of the pre-COVID gross merchandise volumes (GMV). Zomato expects the recovery in the food delivery business in the next two-three months. There is a drop in online food ordering recorded by Swiggy and Zomato.

When the lockdown was imposed in order to prevent the widespread of the COVID-19, people were ordering food in the initial days. They all stopped when the cases of the novel virus increased. Consumer’s behaviour shows that the consumers were more interested in baking and cooking food online rather than ordering it from any outlet. 

We all remember the dalgona coffee at home challenge during the lockdown days. This is a perfect example of how people switched to cook food indoors. Also, there was news of a Zomato rider got COVID-19 positive and infected more than 75 houses by getting in contact with them to deliver the online ordered food. 

The digital food ordering business also removed its many drivers as a result of fewer operations due to the less demand amid the lockdown. There were salary cuts imposed by the companies. However, Zomato still helped its drivers to be on six months leave with half of the salary and rest were fired with leave without pay. 

After the unlocking happened in the country, people are still not willing to order food online in fear of the novel coronavirus.