At half past four on Friday afternoon, catering entrepreneur Paul Herman receives an app from the circle of his trade association. “It will be: closing in the evening at eight o’clock, instead of seven o’clock,” he says. “A first round of dining remains possible.”
He doesn’t have time to think about this. He has his hands full scanning QR codes outside the door of one of his five cafes, De Vergulde Kruik. His cafe in the Haarlemmerstraat in Leiden is filling up. With shoppers, regulars and participants in an ‘inner city drink’ of fellow entrepreneurs.
Well before Prime Minister Rutte’s announcement, the message also reached Maarten Collée. He owns café l’Espérance, one of the student cafés on the Rapenburg. “Do they really think, there in The Hague, that we are retarded?” he wonders. “First they leak that we have to close at seven o’clock. Rutte will soon say: it will be eight o’clock. Then we can be happy that it is supposedly not so bad.”
And Prime Minister Rutte indeed said that cafes and restaurants must close their doors at eight o’clock for the next three weeks. But why? Recent research by the RIVM does not immediately show that catering establishments are a roaring source of infection. Less than 3 percent could be traced back to cafe or restaurant visits. The big risk lurks behind everyone’s front door. In 55 percent of the cases, the virus jumps from housemate to housemate, plus 16 percent that comes along with visitors.
Self-service carts full of drinks
Two students, rushing on their way to pick up their dates on the terrace of café l’Espérance, call it “really bummed” that the bars will be closed again for the next three weeks. What now? “That will be just like the previous lockdown,” says one. “Then we’ll just party at home again,” adds the other. The extra risk of this does not bother them. “No, we are not concerned with that.” Sorry, they’re in a hurry. The dates are waiting. The one and a half meter society will not start again until tomorrow.
This is exactly what cafe owner Collée finds “completely incomprehensible” about government policy. “The self-service carts full of drinks rattled through the city center again today. Everyone will be at home for the next few weeks, infecting each other. The boas are not allowed there to supervise. While we get huge fines when we don’t comply with the corona rules. Do they really think that everyone in the cabinet will sit down at home? I find it so naive. And we pay the bill, time after time.”
Meanwhile, Paul Herman greets one entrepreneur after another for the ‘inner city drink’ in De Vergulde Kruik. It is, at the first meeting, immediately about lost income and cancellations.
Daaf Sloos of the Leidse Rederij says he will miss out on a thousand euros in turnover from round trips this weekend. He had rented out his boats in combination with dinners in Leiden restaurants. Kees Bos, owner of Hotel Nieuw Minerva, can report that he received cancellations for overnight stays today for the sum of three thousand euros. Paul Herman estimates that he will lose at least 20,000 euros in turnover in his cafes when the weekend closes at eight o’clock.
Staff shortage
Inside, hotelier Kees Bos explains that the corona crisis is a disaster that does not come alone. There is also a dramatic staff shortage. One has to do with the other. Bos: “I myself work with permanent staff. Many other catering businesses work with on-call workers. They all found other jobs during the previous lockdown. A large proportion now work for call centers. It pays less than the catering industry, but you sit comfortably behind a computer. You can determine your own working hours. You don’t have to work late at night or on weekends. Compared to that, the hospitality industry is hard work. Fewer and fewer young people are interested in that.”
Somewhere halfway between the cafes De Vergulde Kruik and l’Espérance, the Leidse Pieterskerk towers over the city center. For more than half a century, the church has served as a venue for dinners, ceremonies, events, concerts and exhibitions. But it’s quiet inside, and dark, for nearly two years. “There is not only the direct damage, of another loss of turnover in the next three weeks,” says director Frieke Hurkmans. “There is also the unrest, the uncertainty, which will linger longer and longer.”
Earlier this week, an international company canceled a dinner for 250 guests at the last minute, for which the tables in the church would be set on Thursday evening. It is a loss of many tens of thousands of euros, because all costs – up to and including the purchases by the caterer – had already been incurred.
Hurkmans: „And we were just happy that we finally had something like this back in the house. Due to this new lockdown, clients will think three times before they dare to organize something like this again. The trust is gone. Nobody believes that this lockdown will only last three weeks. This is going to be a long, hard winter.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad of 13 November 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of November 13, 2021
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