For al­most three months, restau­ra­teurs and food ven­dors wait­ed for the gov­ern­ment to give the green light so they could earn a dol­lar to pay their staff, cred­i­tors and pro­vide for their fam­i­lies.

A week af­ter the gov­ern­ment al­lowed this sec­tor to op­er­ate curb­side, de­liv­ery and take­away ser­vices, busi­ness own­ers say the con­tin­ued clo­sure of the re­tail busi­ness­es means there are few cus­tomers around to pa­tro­n­ise them.

There were bare­ly cus­tomers at the many restau­rants, food courts and ven­dors around San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day. There was a slow flow of cus­tomers at Ken­tucky Fried Chick­en (KFC) and Roy­al Cas­tle at Li­brary Cor­ner. How­ev­er, there was a con­stant queue of ve­hi­cles at dri­ve-thrus at  KFC and Star Bucks in Gulf View. 

In times gone by, the food court at RRM Plaza along High Street would be buzzing dur­ing break­fast and lunch hours. How­ev­er, since the re­open­ing of the sec­tor, few busi­ness­es have re­opened.

Plaza own­er Ki­ran Singh said not all malls and plazas re­opened their food courts. The in­ner city com­pris­es most­ly re­tail­ers.

Singh said their con­tin­ued clo­sure means that many peo­ple are not vis­it­ing down­town San Fer­nan­do.

“Ini­tial­ly, we were quite ex­cit­ed to be giv­en the green light to re­open food courts in the mall and all food es­tab­lish­ments and street food. How­ev­er, what has hap­pened is that the long lines that we ex­pect­ed to ma­te­ri­alise did not hap­pen. There is a sim­ple phi­los­o­phy as to why it did not hap­pen; the re­tail­ers have not been al­lowed to open.  Be­cause of that, there is a neg­a­tive mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect go­ing on with­in down­town San Fer­nan­do and through­out the rest of the coun­try,” Singh said.

He said even in the large malls with opened food courts, about 75 per cent of food busi­ness­es re­main closed. He said that malls are pri­mar­i­ly re­tail busi­ness­es, and with no work­ers and cus­tomers shop­ping, there is no traf­fic in­to the food­courts.

“It seems ap­par­ent this will con­tin­ue for some time un­til the re­tail­ers are al­lowed to re­open with­in our econ­o­my. It is not iso­lat­ed to South but through­out the coun­try.”

It was the same opin­ion ex­pressed by Naim Al­la­ham, own­er of The Ur­ban Cur­ry Cafe, at the food court at Gulf City Mall in La Ro­maine. Al­la­ham said he pre­vi­ous­ly served break­fast but re­cent­ly stopped be­cause store work­ers were his main cus­tomers.

“It has been slow, as you can see through­out the mall. I know sales will in­crease soon­er or lat­er when the re­tail part opens in the mall. Then prob­a­bly when we get the in-house din­ing, it will get even bet­ter, “Al­la­ham said.

Since open­ing in 2002, Al­la­ham said this is the worst pe­ri­od of busi­ness he has ever faced but ac­knowl­edged it was the first time ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a pan­dem­ic. To sur­vive right now, he cut back on staff hours. While he did not in­crease prices, it may soon come.

Work­ers at the pop­u­lar fast food out­lets said Church’s Chick­en and Piz­za Boys were the top sell­ers. With KFC prices in­creased, they said peo­ple are choos­ing the more af­ford­able op­tions.

How­ev­er, they said since Ju­ly 19, sales in the food court re­mains slow.

It was the same sto­ry at the Cross Cross­ing strip, where ven­dors saw a slight but in­suf­fi­cient in­crease in sales over the week­end. There were few ven­dors for the 2 pm- 8 pm shift and even few­er cus­tomers in the ear­ly af­ter­noon.

“Sales are a lit­tle slow be­cause I think peo­ple have no mon­ey,” Baseem Asaad, own­er of B’s Gy­ros and Burg­ers, said. Adding to ven­dors’ strug­gle, Asaad said the 7.30 pm stop to their op­er­a­tion gives them lit­tle time for sales as cus­tomers start vis­it­ing the food strip from 6 pm.

Fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s an­nounce­ments that food vend­ing and restau­rants would re­sume, San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo took a con­trary de­ci­sion to de­lay the re­sump­tion of vend­ing in the city un­til Au­gust. Af­ter some back­lash, he changed that de­ci­sion. In an agree­ment, ven­dors at Cross Cross­ing had to stop sell­ing at 7.30 pm so they could va­cate the area at 8 pm.

Some ven­dors said if they do not leave by 8 pm, their busi­ness­es could be sus­pend­ed for a week.