City restaurant loses bookings for more than 80 people in 24 hours as Omicron fears grow
A DERBY city centre restaurant has lost more than £3,000 in 24 hours due to cancellations of Christmas parties.
The Forge Black Rock Steakhouse told the Derby Telegraph that several bookings made up of 86 people were cancelled last weekend, causing the restaurant to lose vital Christmas income for a second year running.
The restaurant on Derby’s Sadler Gate opened in 2019, and so far has only been able to benefit from one full festive season, which is a vital time for all hospitality venues.
Concern over the rise of Covid cases, brought on by the emergence of the Omicron variant, has led to advice from health officials to scale back Christmas celebrations for a second year.
The owner of The Forge Steakhouse, Selina Wallace, said: “People are cancelling, and the thing is I understand where they are coming from. If a company has booked a Christmas party, and one of them gets Covid or this new variant, the whole office is going to get it, so I understand.” However, Selina says that the average customer spends £40 a head at the restaurant, which means it made an approximate loss of £3,200 in one weekend because of the cancellations.
“There were different groups. Groups of 10, then there was a group of 12 and a lot of eights and sixes,” Selina said.
“They were Christmas parties which were booked in and some of them were even pre-ordered and they have just cancelled.”
Selina is concerned about morale amongst her staff as she cannot offer a concrete view of how busy the restaurant will be over the Christmas period. She said: “I’ve told staff they will be working on Boxing Day and now we only have five people because of all of the cancellations. We are better off closing. I have agency staff in the kitchen and now I have to tell the agency that I don’t need them any more because we haven’t got the customers.
“We have got no bookings in January until the 14th and I believe that this is because everyone is uncertain about what’s going on because we have a three-week waiting list for a Saturday night and now January is coming and we are really going to struggle.
“We are just really worried. We have obviously still got to pay the rent and the bills and we’ve only just got the staff again after the furlough situation and now this new variant has come along. People are really uncertain about what is going on.”
Selina thinks that more could be done by the Government to support businesses as the Omicron variant creates more uncertainty in the hospitality sector.
She said: “The Government haven’t shut hospitality, and they have brought in the Covid passes and the tests – but that isn’t going to help hospitality.
“Are they going to pay their staff double time on New Year’s Eve, knowing that you might not get the custom because they don’t want to come in because they don’t want to get Covid or they don’t want the hassle of doing all the tests?”