To think that those of us who work in the restaurant trade are finished?

[WeAreAllDoomedITellYa]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8286345/UKs-work-blueprint-Hot-desking-banned-no-sharing-pens-canteens-closed.html?offset=52&max=100&jumpTo=comment-542862327#comment-542862327

It's the Daily Fail, I know.

But if true very bad news for those of us in the restaurant trade.

It feels like a long drawn out death to me.

I think it’s a long game.

In the short term the industry will be hard hit,but in the medium/longer term I think this could be a positive thing as the industry will rebuild itself from the bottom up with perhaps more originality and the huge chains which have dominated the industry cutting back.

E.g.do we need several different burger chains? Perhaps there will be more scope for smaller businesses to start without so much fear of competition from the bigger chains.A lot of people have a preference for the smaller restaurants and yet so many of them have struggled because of the mass competition.

And it won’t be like this forever. Remember we’re only actually weeks into all this. In a year,eighteen months, two years when we have more effective treatments and when more people have caught the virus and recovered from it the fear will decrease as will the need to keep everyone isolated.

We’ve had pandemics before,and we’ve bounced back from them.

Restaurants and salons will go under.

I will have no job to go back to after maternity leave :(

I read that article in the link. What about gyms and leisure centres?

I think a lot of businesses will go under even if the industry survives long term

Gyms are the worst for spreading illness.

Until a vaccine is developed, I don't think there will be a return to normal ways of eating out and going to the pub.

It's just so terrible and I am very sorry for your partner @Borlotti

It's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, people were going out to eat and to the pub. Seems like another world and a very long time ago. Even when lockdown ends, will we be essentially trapped at home because there won't be anywhere to go?

ATM some pubs /Restaurants are doing a trade in take out food and deliveries .I think once a Vaccine is found it will be very much Business as Usual .In the meantime it is very difficult ,and I feel for those in the trade .The Govt will have to help and have apparently taken on more staff to help with benefit payments and so on .

I am a gym instructor. I am thinking of getting a job in a care home - they seem to be the only places hiring.

Well that’s cheerful OP, hope there isn’t any restaurant staff/owners reading this who were feeling a little bit positive. Things will close but things will bounce back, some will survive some won’t, it’s a recession as we have had in the not so distant past as much as people are feeling doom and gloom now there are a lot of people not financially affected by this who are desperate to go out and support the trade.

Airlines have a bigger problem than restaurants. Some restaurants can and will adapt with outside seating, spacing, takeaways, deliveries and will manage to scrape by until the vaccine arrives.
The travel industry may never recover properly.

DH works is the live music industry. I don’t think he will have any work for at least a year.

I just can see how anyone is going to want to pack into a stadium. Would a socially distanced gig work?

How very sad. They really need them to allow to try opening soon. I think already unpopular ones might fold but the others I hope will make it.

Drive thru Costa and KFC opened near me in the last week - both had queues of over 3hrs during lockdown. Mental.

Greggs have postponed their reopening because they didn't want to add to this sort of thing and knew they'd be rammed (well done them).

I'd be worried as a manager /server etc but not as a chef, lots of businesses adapting to either spaced seating etc if they can, or takeaway options. Our local independent cafe is doing takeaway boxes of things like make your own pizza kits or bbq boxes where they've prepped skewers and sides etc for you to cook at home. Really good quality. They also do veg boxes. Doing better than they were prior to all this starting!

That last Friday night our restaurant was open was the busiest we'd been in a while, hundreds of people came in for one last hurrah. It's very difficult to get a good idea of how many people will actually never want to leave the house again and how many people will be out of the door as soon as they can be.

Under 40s are least affected by the virus and they're the target market for most places. The difficulty is that if we have to reopen with social distancing rules it would be really difficult to plan rotas and purchase stock as we'd have absolutely nothing to compare it to for par levels.

Also, I think/hope people on these forums are more anxious than a lot of the general population. So hopefully there will be enough willing punters.

The shop I work in sells candles, scarves, soft furnishings, posh body lotions etc.

It’s a hover and browse sort of shop. I can’t see how any sort of social distancing will work, and people won’t want to touch and feel goods that other people have touched.

I am very concerned.

I'm hoping that things will get back to normal quicker than the doom merchants predict. I personally cannot wait to be out eating in a restaurant.

Once the vaccine is made and distributed surely it can go back to normal though.

Obviously not right now because it will just spread corona again, and restaurants, pubs etc will be heaving the minute they open. Look at the queues at McDonald's and Costa this weekend. People will go, they won't be worried about catching anything.

I think the tourism market is screwed more. Even whenever they can let us fly again, loads of people have possibly lost their jobs. They are going to see a reduced number of people flying for business too, not just holidays.

I don’t see how most pubs or cafes would survive just on deliveries. My local cafe is doing morning breakfasts for delivery. I would normally visit them regularly for coffee or lunch but would not be interested in takeaways.

It’s a small place with about ten tables so I don’t see how they could operate with the new rules. There are several outdoor seats but obviously They can’t rely on that as weather dependent.

I don’t think the issue here is the anxiety of the customers. It’s more the new rules and guidelines and how a business could still function and Make a profit.

Yes absolutely but unless you are suggesting that there will be no cafes/coffee shops/restaurants for an indefinite period of time the same applies, some will survive and some won’t.

I really feel for eveyone who works in hospitality at the moment. Things are going to be really tough for them.

The rural pub trade was already struggling, I think an awful lot of villages will lose their pubs.

It's beyond sad.

I think the press are loving spreading all this doom and people are lapping it up.

Let’s be realistic here, 75% of restaurants close within the first year of trading anyway. It’s a very fluid industry as it is. And people will bounce back,or do people really think that we’re going to be in lockdown forever.

As much as people hate the term herd immunity,as people do catch the virus people will become immmune to it and so less people will catch it and so on. The lockdown was only ever to ensure the health service survived,not to stop people catching it.But the media is spreading the message that going out is akin to murder and so people are afraid to go out.

But there comes a point where a balance has to be struck and life does have to go back to normal or even a new normal.

And where one industry doesn’t survive another will enter in bits place. Personally as hard as it will be for people in the airline industry to lose their jobs,less international travel will mean more gains in the British tourist industry,and less pollution to the planet in the name of climate change.

I don’t know, it is grim times for sure. We’re in a fortunate-ish position that my husband works in a pretty (locally) famous restaurant and he also has long service there so even if he was made redundant it hopefully buys us quite a bit of time. The loss of the industry altogether would severely damage the economy though so fingers crossed that even when other industries are back furlough continues for a bit and buys some time. Deliveries and takeaway might work for some places shorter term but not for places where my husband works, higher end fine dining where people really go for the experience

I think there will be a fair few that won't survive sadly.
We didn't eat out in restaurants regularly, but used coffee shops,cafes a fair bit ( average at least £150 a month ) We don't see ourselves doing this again for a very long time. My dh is in shielding group and not due for ' release ' until at least mid July, even then we will continue to keep away from crowds and groups of people .