The owners of restaurants, who already have their backs to the wall because of onerous lockdown regulations, have been left reeling by the government's latest ban on alcohol sales as many had derived much-needed income from serving as off-licences.
Marcelle Roberts, who together with her husband Sean owns the Café 1999 and Unity restaurants in Musgrave, Durban, said they hope to survive the lockdown but that they "will have to start from scratch", having poured their life savings into their establishments over the years.
The two also own the restaurant S43 and the attached brewery, That Brewing Company, also in Durban.
"Especially with our brewery, we were doing home deliveries and I was selling quite a bit of wine from the restaurants as well," Roberts said.
"It's crazy. Now we can't sell any beer. Our beer is just sitting in the tanks."
She said if the latest ban on the sale of alcohol is only for a month then their beer should be OK as the tanks are temperature-controlled.
"But eventually we will have to destroy the beer if it [the liquor ban] carries on for too long."
The number of people working in
restaurants who have been
retrenched, according to The
Restaurant Association of SA
— 400,000
Roberts said being able to sell alcohol as a takeaway had really helped the business as it "almost doubled my turnover from the beginning of June until now, compared with May during the hard lockdown when no alcohol was sold anywhere".
Even so, their income has been hit hard. Pre-lockdown the turnover at one of their restaurants was about R400,000 a month, but now with the takeaway operation they are only making just over R100,000.
She has also only been able to sell food for takeaway and home delivery from Unity, because Café 1999 is more of a fine-dining establishment and it was economical to operate out of just one kitchen during lockdown.
"The effect of lockdown has been devastating on our business. It's so hard to predict what is going to happen.
"People keep asking us when are we going to open Café 1999 and I don't have an answer for them.
"We have to keep doing what is working for us. Takeaways and home deliveries are working for us as people are too scared to come out for dinner."
Roberts said they have been fortunate because they have the same landlord for both Café 1999 and Unity, and he has "been very accommodating".
"I think that is the make or break. He has understood that we are in a complete dark space. We will pull through, but we will have to start from scratch."
Top chef Luke Dale Roberts, who owns The Test Kitchen, The Pot Luck Club, Salsify and the Short Market Club restaurants in Cape Town, said the Short Market Club and Salsify have been closed because of Covid-19, but that he hopes to reopen them once the crisis is over.
He is no relation to Marcelle Roberts.
He said The Pot Luck Club is serving sit-down meals, deliveries and takeaways on a limited number of days, but the going is tough.
"Everything we are doing is a novelty. People are trying it out and are intrigued by it, but there is no real repeat custom. It's because people don't have the money and you can't recreate a restaurant experience at home."
He said business was so quiet they decided to close The Pot Luck Club from Monday to Wednesday "because it's absolutely dead", while The Test Kitchen may open next month. He said the fact that the government had stopped paying funds in terms of its Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme meant the only way for staff to receive any unemployment benefits was for them to be laid off, which placed restaurants in a horrible position.
"We had 230 staff working for us, and now we are down to about 130. I would like to re-employ people we have had to let go.
"We consider them our family. We know the people personally and a lot of them have been working for us for a very long time."
Roberts said they have been providing staff with food parcels and have set up a solidarity fund to "augment their wages to give them additional funds to keep them going".
The Restaurant Association of SA (Rasa) said the renewed booze ban and reintroduction of a curfew by President Cyril Ramaphosa are further indicators of how "at every turn government has been obstructive".
Earlier in the week Rasa said it was seeking legal advice on what action to take against the government on restrictions on liquor licences and the curfew regulations.
"We are full sit-down restaurants, but then we had to become a delivery service and we are not experienced delivery people. Then it was delivery and takeaway.
"Then they [the government] said don't worry, you can turn into a bottle store, and then they said OK you can finally open for sit-down but you have to be a coffee shop. And then we had coffee shops serving dinner and they said you can't do that any more.
"It is the death of dinner," said Wendy Alberts, CEO of Rasa.
"The last 20 weeks have clearly highlighted that the government is not interested in the industry. At no point have they shown any degree of respect for the letters we have written."
Alberts said 400,000 restaurant staff have already been retrenched across the industry.
"We also did a survey on Wednesday and within two hours we had 300 restaurants responding. About 209 restaurants have closed temporarily, but permanently laid off all their staff. Sixty-nine restaurants have closed permanently."
The latest alcohol ban had also come as a blow because Rasa had been trying to negotiate with the government to lift the ban on liquor sales for people sitting down in restaurants.
"People come into our restaurants, we have regulations, we are bound by liquor regulations and we are responsible operators," Alberts said.
"We have formal establishments. We don't have people coming into our restaurants and getting drunk and debauched, and falling over each other."
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