After Gurgaon and Delhi, restaurants in Noida were given the go-ahead by authorities to reopen from June 21 at 50% capacity.
However, unlike Delhi and Gurgaon, restaurants in this side of town haven’t got a “very encouraging” response over the last couple of days.
Still, restaurateurs are hopeful that in days to come, they will be able to get enough footfall to sustain operations.
“I think till the time we are only allowed to remain open till 9pm, footfall will remain low.
Closing at 9pm means that we have to take our last order by 8pm and that is not feasible for business.
Also, the weekend curfew is still in place in Noida, and weekends are the only time when we get good business during the day.
We are hoping that there will be some relaxation in rules for eateries after July 30.
If not, we are planning to write a letter to authorities requesting them to allow us some relaxations or to at least allow us to remain open on weekends,” says Varun Khera, Noida chapter head of National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), who has reopened his two outlets, Desi Vibes and Kaffiiaa, in Noida.
He adds that despite the reopening of restaurants in Noida, quite a few people are driving to neighbouring areas in Delhi to dine out instead.
“I think it is because of the timings.
Delhi restaurants are allowed to remain open till 10pm and they also opened a week before Noida,” says Khera.
The silver lining for businesses is that the number of delivery orders is still high and that is helping outlets sustain operations.
“Since we have an outlet in a mall, it is slightly more difficult for us as the mall is not allowing visitors after 8pm.
So, we can operate for even lesser hours than the rest.
But the good thing is that we have a high number of orders for delivery.
We are hoping that in the coming days, if we are allowed to remain open on weekends, footfall might increase,” says Satyajit Dhingra, Chief Regional Officer – North, Impresario Handmade Restaurants that runs Social at a mall in Sector 18.
Restaurant owners add that with most outlets in Noida reopening now, they have to start operations with limited staff.
“We took almost four days to gather staff and reopened our outlet on Friday.
With other outlets reopening, it is important for us to now restart business as well.
Also, I feel that even if we do not get any business in the initial days of reopening, we have to start operations so customers too start feeling confident enough to return.
We have to reopen with all safety precautions and our focus right now is to provide a safe dining space to guests – only then can we expect better business in the coming days,” says Sharad Madan, co-founder, Imperfecto in Noida.