Just when news about restaurants closing down during Lockdown had almost ground to a halt, eight restaurants in Cape Town in the past week have announced their closure, some temporary, due to the new Adjusted Level 3 Lockdown which commenced on 29 December 2020. The Curfew starting at 21h00, Restaurants having to close at 20h00, and alcohol sales not being allowed, combined with diners’ fear of the greater spreadability of the mutated Corona Virus, is affecting restaurant turnovers harshly.
Despite the Lockdown regulations affecting restaurants so badly in the past nine months, a total of 66 new restaurants have opened in Cape Town and the Winelands during Lockdown. Top chefs are opening new restaurants, including Chefs Peter Tempelhoff and Liam Tomlin. Continue reading →
The tight controls over the Restaurant industry are taking its toll, the alcohol ban as well as Curfew announced on 12 July being a death knell for restaurants, more closing down completely. The most recent Curfew amendment on 30 July, in changing the starting time of the Curfew to 22h00, is of little benefit to restaurants and their diners.
Twice in the past month a section of one of two of my Blogposts, being lists of Restaurant Closures and Reopened Sit-Down Restaurants, has been cribbed and shared without permission or credit to this Blog as the source. While this is extremely flattering to me as the owner and editor of the Blog, it is downright illegal, constituting plagiarism, and is downright unprofessional! 
The Restaurant industry is one of the hardest hit due to the Corina Virus in South Africa, having had to endure five weeks of complete closure, then restricted to Food Deliveries in May, allowed to offer Alcohol Sales and Food Collections during June, and now allowed to offer Sit-Down Service without on-site alcohol consumption since Monday 29 June. As an industry employing an estimated 800000 employees, the UIF and TERS problems it has had to endure in receiving (or not) staff payment has exacerbated the state of the restaurant industry, described by Chefs Warehouse Chef Liam Tomlin earlier this week as being reduced to nothing more than one of Coffee shops!