The city has been agog with ‘news’ and stories about many of its popular restaurants shutting down due to lack of business because of the pandemic. G Plus gives the true picture of the situation with exclusive bites from restaurant owners.
Given the setbacks to the restaurant business of Guwahati ever since the outbreak of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December last, the fraternity of restaurateurs have never had it so bad.
Recently, while some restaurants were deciding on opening timings, social media was abuzz with hearsay of several popular city restaurants being shut down permanently. But later it was found that some of the restaurants which were deemed to have been shut down are still open and rubbishing all such claims.
G Plus reached out to the owners of several such restaurant owners to present the correct picture of the situation.
Ranbir Kar, proprietor of Chick N Chilly and Vice president of All Assam Restaurant Association (AARA), speaking to G Plus, confirmed that he has decided to shut 4 out of his 5 outlets in Guwahati.
In the restaurant business we deal with perishable items we require fresh vegetables, meat, etc and if we are allowed to operate only for 5 hours in a day or five days in a week there is no point keeping the outlets open. Adding he said, “Landlords are not willing to compromise with the rent. Hence, it has been very difficult for me to continue with the business and so I took this decision in April.”
Ichchapuron was also supposedly shut down. However, the owners informed G Plus that the restaurant is currently under renovation and shall start operating when the situation is better.
Another popular restaurant Heritage Khorikaa has decided to shut its Lamb Road branch. Chef Atul Lahkar, the owner of Heritage Khorikaa, speaking to G Plus said, “After 3-4 months of the lockdown the government allowed the opening of restaurants but they were again shut in Guwahati due to the lockdown. It was only recently when the delivery of food was allowed which was followed by dining in. But people are not coming; only 10% of guests are ordering or dining in. Ours is a lunch and dinner special menu. I decided to shut down my Lamb Road outlet. For now, we shall only run one outlet,” he added.
Sugata Goswami, owner of the iconic ‘The Dhaba’ took to social media to confirm that he is not closing down. He wrote, “Just saw a post on FB saying our Restaurant, The Dhaba is closing down for good. Let me assure you it is unfounded rumour and we intend to be back in business from next week. We will not open our Dharapur branch immediately, but that too will open in due time. Cheers.”
Popular restaurant Chung Fa has also been rumoured to be shut down. Speaking to G Plus, the manager of Chung Fa said, “The lockdown has been very difficult for us. We have salaries to be paid. We decided to turn Chung Fa into a cloud kitchen. We are currently operating from China Town. We are operating with very limited staff who stay in our staff quarters. We don't plan to open the dine-in option at China Town any time soon but we are open for delivery and takeaway both from Chung Fa and China Town.”
Social media posts also claimed that Quick Pick and Red have been shut down. G Plus reached out to the owner of the restaurant who clearly denied the claim. Rajnish Goswami, owner of Quick Pick told G Plus, “We gave notice about Quick Pick Dighalipukhuri being shut in the month of February. Red will be reopening soon. The Silpukhuri outlet of Quick Pick is open for both dine-in and delivery.”
Another entity that has been shut down is Shillong Momo. Deba Kumar Barman, owner of J14, Shillong Momo, and the president of All Assam Restaurant Association (AARA) confirmed the news to G Plus saying, “Shillong Momo has been shut but J 14 is running. Currently, we are only taking orders for delivery and take away. But our sales have come down to 8-10% of our normal sales. Currently, we have limited our menu to rolls and burgers majorly.”
Owner of Grill Republica, Jeet Borah, confirmed to G Plus that only one of the outlets is being shut down while the rest will continue to serve.
Speaking to G Plus he said, “We closed our Wireless outlet due to COVID and also because it wasn’t performing at a pace that we wanted. The Commerce and Uzan Bazar outlets are currently running. We shall open them when the curfew timings are relaxed.”
Among other restaurants that were rumoured to be closed down were Kasturi Restaurant, Dine Way Platz, Hot Pot, D’Vine, and Cafe 361.
Manager of Kasturi Restaurant informed G Plus saying, “Currently we are only taking orders for online delivery and takeaways. We plan to open the restaurant after August 15 probably.”
Owner of Dine Way Platz, Abhijit Bhuyan told G Plus, “We are not shutting down. Currently, we are shut due to the lockdown but once it's over we will open up. We plan to open after August 16.”
Owner of D’Vine Restaurant Manasdeep Chakraborty informed G Plus that they have not shut down. Speaking to G Plus, he said, “We are not closing. We have temporarily shut down due to the lockdown. We will definitely open, most probably from September.”
Cafe 361 which recently opened last year has been temporarily shut down for the time being.
Hot Pot has been temporarily shut down due to the lockdown and shall be opening soon.
Further, ex-manager of 16 Anna Bengali Restaurant confirmed to G Plus that the restaurant has been shut down due to the lockdown.
The Zouq : Resto-Cafe has also been shut. The decision was made public through the social media handles of the cafe.
Owner of Dilli 6, Vicky Seth confirmed to G Plus that the brand has decided to shut one of their outlets in Bhangagarh. Seth said, “We have been shut since March, and being a two-year-old brand it has been very difficult to sustain. So we have decided to shut down the Bhangagarh branch. We shall open the Hatigaon branch shortly.”
With around 500-550 small and big restaurants in Guwahati, some have decided to shut down permanently or temporarily, several other restaurants around the city are trying their best to get back into the market.
Apart from keeping up with the necessary precautions, cleanliness, physical distancing, safety gears, and more some restaurants have also decided to go online and work on delivery only, some have limited their menus and some have come up with a digital menu to maintain social distancing.
Several restaurateurs spoke to G Plus about the issues being faced by them currently.
Speaking to G Plus about the current scenario Anish Tulsyan, Media Secretary of AARA, and owner of Food Court at Roodraksh Mall said, “We didn't open our food court in the current unlock as opening 2 or 3 days in a week makes no sense as it won’t even pay the day’s electricity bill. The food industry has not seen good days since November last. People with deep pockets and people who have received relaxations in their rents will survive but 99% of people have not received any relaxation on rents. But even with rental relaxations, it will be very difficult to survive. In the mid when we opened for 15-20 days our sales dropped down to 10% of what it used to be. We believe that things will get better in a month or two.”
A cafe owner from Guwahati, Shabnam Yasmin, told G Plus, “The major reason for restaurants shutting down is the payment of rent. We are not getting help neither from the landlords nor the government. We have to all start from ground level and to reinvest everything and the probability of it working is a big quest mark. Though people are coming up and ordering, a huge section of people are still scared to order in or eat out, in fact, there are people who have not moved out of their houses for months now.”
AARA speaks on expecting help from Assam Government
Deba Kumar Barman, the president of All Assam Restaurant Association (AARA) told G Plus, “It has been a pathetic situation for us and we have been neglected by everyone. In this condition when we are in such a bad shape our landlords are also not reducing a single penny from the rent. We (AARA) even submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister of Assam asking for help and I had hoped that the government would do something for us but we have not received any help from them so far.”
Adding he said, “As hotels have been turned into Covid centres the same could have been done for us. The government could have outsourced the food supply for Covid patients from our association and we could have segregated teams consisting of several restaurants. It would have been helpful for us. At least it would have helped us to pay the rent or salary of our staff.
Ranbir Kar, Vice president AARA said, “We met the chief minister of Assam and submitted a memorandum but no action has been taken for the food fraternity. In other states like Bengal or Hyderabad, the restaurants were allowed to open even during the lockdown keeping them in the category of essential services. It is said that Guwahati is on the verge of being a metro city and here we are not even allowed to open eateries at night.”
On April 27, 2020 through a memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister of Assam the association mentioned about the hardships faced by the food industry and had requested the Chief Minister to look into matters like rentals, WC Loan, subsidies on utility payment, extension of validity of all licenses/registrations for a period of 12 months starting April 1, 2020, Statutory Dues and Indigenous home-grown aggregator partners among others.