“Before the health crisis, we used to come to this restaurant once a week and couldn't wait to come back and taste the risotto and chili con carne that we were starting to miss!
Just like Evelyne and Jean-Pierre, nearly a hundred customers flocked to the Globe Trotter restaurant in Chelles (Seine-et-Marne), which reopened on Wednesday after more than seven months of closure.
Located in the gallery of the Terre Ciel shopping center in Chelles, this restaurant, which opened in December 2019 and prides itself on being the largest in Ile-de-France - with an area of 2,500 m² indoors and a capacity of nearly 700 seats - came back to life on June 9, when indoor restaurants were allowed to reopen with a 50% reduction in the tonnage.
"It feels good to find this lost conviviality"
“Before the health crisis, we used to eat almost every lunchtime in a restaurant. I am not a regular but I followed a colleague. It feels good to find this lost conviviality and to be able to escape for an hour from this rather gloomy daily life! »Rejoices Philippe, entrepreneur in the building industry. He works on a construction site in Chelles and came to sit down on his lunch break with a group of colleagues.
Same story for Évelyne and Jean-Pierre: “As soon as the restaurants with terraces reopened, we went back there.
But we are happy to be able to come back to this great value restaurant now, where we will go every time we shop at the mall next door.
"This couple of Chellois retirees does not fear a possible Covid contamination:" We are vaccinated.
"
"We had to tighten our belts during confinement"
To reassure customers, a decontamination airlock has been installed at the entrance to the restaurant to allow customers to disinfect themselves.
"A thermal camera takes the temperature of customers before they pass under a fogger that sprays alcohol under the gantry," says Zhen Wang, CEO and founder of Globe Trotter, who invested 3,000 euros to bring in the device directly from China.
Chelles, this Wednesday.
A disinfection lock has been installed at the entrance to the Globe Trotter restaurant.
LP / HD
And the optimism displayed by the customers at the table is shared by several employees, such as Dolph, a manager responsible for reception and waiters: “After seven months of partial unemployment, it feels good to see a busy world again and to find full pay, because we had to tighten our belts during confinement.
It's a restaurant that worked well before the crisis, with regulars who sometimes came from far away.
I am confident for the recovery ”.
A mixed attendance on this reopening day
If the stoves are again on and the servers are busy clearing the tables, only a hundred customers have come to enjoy the all-you-can-eat buffet of Asian, Indian, French and Mediterranean cuisines this Wednesday noon, while the half-gauge allows the sign to serve 350 place settings.
But Zhen Wang considers this first service satisfactory and encouraging: “Of course, a hundred customers is not enough in the long term, but it is not bad if we want to resume smoothly after seven. month of closure.
During the month of June, we especially want customers to understand that we are open and resume the fold to come.
Before the crisis, we made 80% of our turnover in the evenings and weekends.
It is on these niches that we intend to fill our half-gauge with 350 seats so that our activity returns to its pre-crisis level by July.
"
Read alsoOctober 2020: with the curfew, a difficult evening at the Globe Trotter
A necessity for this establishment which suffered during the crisis.
“From the October curfew and between the second and third confinements, it was not interesting for us to reopen.
Over the year 2020, we had losses amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros due to our significant fixed costs such as rent or electricity charges, as well as taxes and payroll.
This situation must be resolved within six to ten months, ”explains Zhen Wang.
"We must not use this crisis to increase prices"
However, the latter has made it a point of honor not to increase the prices of his card, nor to cut his workforce. “Before the health crisis, we had 49 employees but some left during confinement and we had fallen to a workforce of 32 people who benefited from partial unemployment. But we had to hire again and we went back to around 40 employees in order to prepare for this reopening. This crisis should not be used either to pass on a price increase to customers, even if a large number of suppliers have not been deprived of their efforts to increase their prices. For example, I noticed that a wholesaler had increased by 30% the price of a reference of whipped cream that we got from him! "
