Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

Af­ter two months of on­ly be­ing al­lowed to of­fer take-out ser­vices due to COVID-19 re­stric­tions, sev­er­al restau­rants across the coun­try say they are ready to dust off the chairs and put them back on the ground.

Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed CEO Si­mon Hardy told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day the com­pa­ny is ea­ger­ly await­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s me­dia brief­ing from To­ba­go at 2.30 pm to­day. In the event Row­ley lifts re­stric­tions, al­low­ing the re­sump­tion of in-house din­ing, Hardy said all of their five out­lets are ready to serve cus­tomers safe­ly.

“We were ready to have our in-house din­ing ser­vices back in Ju­ly/Au­gust when we were able to, tak­ing the usu­al safe­ty pre­cau­tions such as wear­ing masks, tak­ing tem­per­a­tures of cus­tomers and staff, fre­quent hand wash­ing and sani­tis­ing of con­tact sur­faces,” he said dur­ing a brief tele­phone in­ter­view.

“We have even in­stalled hand sani­tis­er units for cus­tomers and in­stalled ad­di­tion­al par­ti­tions pri­or to the sec­ond phase of re­stric­tions.”

In-house din­ing at restau­rants and bars was de­bared among oth­er mea­sures an­nounced by Row­ley on Au­gust 15, 2020 as the coun­try bat­tled to pre­vent com­mu­ni­ty spread of the virus.

Nali­ni Gal­barans­ingh, di­rec­tor of Singh’s Group of Com­pa­nies, mean­while it’s time T&T learn to live with the virus. She said while she un­der­stands the Gov­ern­ment’s con­cerns, busi­ness­es are suf­fer­ing. She not­ed that op­er­a­tions at their ho­tels, Grafton Beach Re­sort and Le Grand Courlan Spa Re­sort and their Waves Restau­rant and Bar have been se­vere­ly im­pact­ed.

“I had 170 staff at the mid­dle of March and laid off every­body for how many months and with the lit­tle bit of busi­ness we have had, we were able to keep our door ajar, not even open,” she lament­ed.

In his last ad­dress on the COVID pro­to­cols, Row­ley said bars, restau­rants and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions could be giv­en some le­nien­cy once there was no spike in cas­es. Ear­li­er this week, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said the to­tal av­er­age dai­ly cas­es had been on the de­cline, bring­ing hope to many busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens that there would be some ease to re­stric­tions to­day.

Glob­al Brands Lim­it­ed di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Sab­ga-Aboud said their teams are pre­pared for any even­tu­al­i­ty to­day.

“We have our teams on stand­by in case we need to re­open our din­ing rooms to en­sure we have a smooth tran­si­tion for when­ev­er the Prime Min­is­ter may re­open the econ­o­my, whether that may be this week­end or when­ev­er,” Sab­ga-Aboud said.

Roy­al Cas­tle CEO Sandy Roopc­hand al­so said they have a safe­ty plan in place to pro­tect both cus­tomers and staff in the event the Prime Min­is­ter gives the green light to­day.