Excited about the opening of restaurants this coming Sunday?
You should know that many restaurants will not open at all • Among the reasons: rumors of a Passover closure
A closed restaurant in Tel Aviv
Photo:
Coco
This coming Sunday, another wave of relief is expected to begin, which includes, among other things, the opening of restaurants at the end of months of waiting.
So there is no clear outline yet and who knows when it will be, but if you are a diner who is looking forward to visiting your favorite restaurant, coming back to see a familiar face and not an app, ordering from a waiter or small talk with the host - you may be in for a surprise.
Many restaurateurs do not even plan to open their restaurants on a Sunday, for a variety of reasons.
Above all, the most prominent reason is the lack of economic viability, especially common among restaurants that operate in deliveries and self-collection but as long as there is no sufficiently cohesive outline.
Uriel Kimchi
, chef of the "Popina" restaurant in Tel Aviv, an old and well-known restaurant that was filled to capacity every evening during the repair, does not intend to open its doors this coming Sunday.
"Until Tuesday morning, we were sure we would open and indeed intended to do so," Kimchi told Israel Today.
"But later we saw that there is no official decision to open this coming Sunday and worse, there is also no outline that has been officially approved, so we made a decision - cut off emotion and think financially about what is currently worth waiting for, probably in light of the uncertainty ahead of Passover. There will be a closure, a night curfew or anything else that will take us back. "
"I talked to quite a few colleagues," Kimchi continued.
"Some went with the emotion and said 'open up and be what', others also had the same familiar limitations. The first is recruiting staff - as long as there are workers many of the workers said they wanted to come back only when they finished.
Once we open the door we commit to a particular product to the customer and at the moment we can not do that.
However, it does not bother us because even before the Corona we knew, like any restaurant, ups and downs in everything related to manpower. "
"The cost of training staff and ordering goods is around hundreds of thousands of shekels and outside, when it comes to decisions, there is a lot of confusion and indecision, so I do not trust the decision makers and can know for sure, as mentioned, that there will be no further closure in the near future."
"On the other hand, I also agree with whoever developed it," the chef concludes.
"Enough, how much is possible. A big part of my decision was that when it comes to earning a living we have the events and deliveries so we better wait. We are given a whole year of emotional roller coaster. If you do not make a decision we will make it and it will be informed and logical. "More than eight years and the ambition is that she will stay alive for many more years so that nothing emotional will be done that will end up being shot in the foot."
"For all my friends who chose to open, I hope to be the one to cheat and they will be the ones who made the right decision in retrospect. There are lots of restaurants that also do lunch service and deliveries on a daily basis. For me, which is only open in the evening and needs to re-train staff, it does not pay off. I continue with the Poppina line to the house and we have previous commitments to events that have already been set, we do them and now, when the restaurant is allowed to open, we open for a day or two a week of "experiments", Poppina informally. Pay a pre-determined price and do not know what to get. "
The main forum of the catering industry stated:
"Unfortunately, hundreds of businesses will not open this coming Sunday and during the next week not because they went bankrupt, but because they do not find workers. This absurd situation was caused by the Knesset model, which was true in the early days of the crisis. Today, about 800,000 people sit at home, and our industry has no employees. "
"There is no reason to open now if the chances of Passover closing again," said a restaurateur from the center of the country who refused to identify himself by name.
"I'm already working on deliveries, self-collection from here is also not bad because there are gardens and crates around, why would I now start paying waiters, bartenders and a hostess if I have to take them out to the khalat again, can't look them in the eye anymore.
"It is sad that after almost a whole year that we are closed instead of opening and going crazy from too much work, our most worthwhile consideration is to stay closed for a few more weeks."
Yaniv Harush, owner of Tel Yitzhak Kitchen & Garden
, decided on an interim solution, a partial and careful opening: And more.
Currently our yard with an invested and beautiful garden, will be open for seating under strict adherence to distance and in accordance with the preservation of the purple character.
Once there is an orderly layout we will open the entire complex for seating at full capacity.
"Right now it just comes down to that, mainly believing there will be another closure, so we are currently focusing on a careful opening."
