Restaurants to reopen today
For the first time in weeks, the Grand Café in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood was busy Tuesday afternoon. Cleaners and handymen worked with alacrity to make sure everything was fixed and spotless. Behind the counter, a young barista was checking the equipment. Passersby would knock at the door and ask if the restaurant was open. “Not yet, tomorrow,” one of the workers would say.
For the café, as for thousands of other restaurants all over Israel, Wednesday marks an important day: After two and a half months, they will be allowed to reopen under the authorities’ safety measures against coronavirus.
But while reopening is certainly a reason to celebrate, many uncertainties remain, Adi Talmor, a co-owner of Grand Café and the popular sushi chain Sushi Rehavia, told The Jerusalem Post.
“We are happy to go back to
work, to bring people back to work here,” he said. “We are happy for our customers, for the local community. At the same time, it is not easy. We are rearranging the place to make sure that we abide by the regulations. We will start with a limited menu. Going back to normal will take time. It is not enough to reopen; it is important to do it in a smart way.”
About 60 or 70 people earn their livelihood from the business, Talmor said, adding that for the time being, only half of the workers who were laid off will be brought back. At the beginning of the lockdown, the café tried to offer takeout and deliveries, but it did not really work, he said.
The government regulations include taking the temperature of people before they come in, ensuring a minimum distance of 1.5 meters between tables, requiring all staff members and customers to wear a mask (for the latter, except for when they are eating), cleaning and disinfecting tables and chairs after every party and all surfaces regularly and providing hand sanitizers and disposable menus.
The regulations received their final approval from the government on Tuesday night. Other restrictions were eased up as well. For example, the limitation on the number of employees allowed in a room in offices and business places was canceled.
Aside from the challenge of complying with the new rules, the real unknown factor for restaurateurs seems to be how will potential diners respond.
“Many of our regulars are people
of an older age,” Talmor told the Post. “Will they be willing to come? Many people have gotten used to eating at home. Will they change their habits again? And if people do come, will they have money to spend on wine or dishes or just be content to sit and drink a cup of coffee?”
“Moreover, both the staff and the customers will need to get used to a new routine,” he said. “It is going to require an effort from both sides. On our part, we know we have to make sure that people who come to eat at our place, whether for breakfast, tea and cake or a nice dinner, still enjoy the experience.”
Having a kosher restaurant reopen the day before Shavuot begins (Thursday evening) is not ideal, Talmor said.
Also, the Sushi Rehavia chain will not resume activities at full speed just yet. Their original branch for the moment will remain devoted to deliveries, just offering a few spots to customers who wish to consume their takeout on the spot.
“Since we had been doing deliveries for years at Sushi Rehavia, we have kept going from the beginning of the coronavirus crisis,” Talmor said. “We lowered the minimum order and started delivery in neighborhoods where we didn’t before. We even hired a few new people for this purpose. However, we still had to put about 80% of the 200 workers on unpaid leave.”
Two other branches will remain close for the time being, while the one in German Colony will reopen under a new concept of “sushi garden,” with customers ordering and picking up their food and beverages at the counters and then sitting at one of the tables in the yard.
On Tuesday, MacDonald’s announced it would expand the number of branches that offer outdoor sitting.
If many restaurateurs are waiting to see if and how the customers will come back, for others, COVID19 already has marked the end of their business, including the popular Vietnamese restaurant Hanoi in Tel Aviv and the pub 1918 in Petah Tikva.
According to data from Misadanim Chazakim B’yachad (Restaurateurs Strong Together), as reported by Haaretz, about 10% to 15% of restaurants are not going to reopen.
In the aftermath of the full lockdown, some restaurateurs hope to reinvent their model to be ready for a new emergency.
Tamar Ben Ellul, the owner of Kalo Café Restaurant in Jerusalem, told the Post they only are going to open their outdoor area and bring back some of the workers for the time being. But the café is never going back to be what it used to be, she said.
“We are going to change our concept,” Ben Ellul said. “We are going to become a delicatessen where it is also possible to sit and eat, something that is very popular in Tel Aviv. This way, when the next coronavirus crisis hits, we will be okay. After going through a trauma, you learn something. We will be ready next time.”
“We received a lot of joyful news today,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Tuesday night. “The government approved the opening of restaurants, pubs, bars, large parks, pools.”
“First of all, we want to help the economy – the business owners and the self-employed who have longed for this moment,” he said. “Secondly, we want to make your life easier, allow you to get out, get back to normal, have a cup of coffee, drink beer, too.
“So first of all, go and enjoy. At the same time, we are also following the developments, and we will get organized according to the progress of the infection rate,” Netanyahu said. •