The already hard-pressed restaurant industry was dealt a further blow last month as the president announced the return to an adjusted level 3 lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The regulations mean restaurants must close their doors by 8 pm.
Additionally, the sale of alcohol was prohibited and each venue must determine the maximum number of customers permitted based on social distancing guidelines.
With that in mind, a new survey has shown the overall impact of level 3 lockdown on South Africa’s restaurant industry.
Dineplan, a company used as a reservation management platform by thousands of restaurants, pulled statistics to get an idea of the pain restaurants are feeling.
It compared the number of bookings, diners, no-shows, cancellations and estimated total revenue lost this month compared with the same time last year.
The company said the results spoke volumes, quite literally.
“Only taking into account restaurants in SA’s big cities - Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban - the data indicate the number of diners has plummeted this month by a whopping 60.1% year-on-year.
“The number of bookings declined by a lower, but still huge 51.52%, meaning that the average number of diners per booking has decreased.
“This makes sense as diners try to decrease the number of people they socialise with.
“With the ban on booze, the average spend per head will also have crucially dropped, resulting in a loss of revenue significantly more than the 60% drop in the number of diners.
“It is clear to see why so many restaurants have been unable to keep their doors open this year, leading to large-scale job losses and knock-on effects on suppliers.
“A small silver lining is that no-show rates (diners who book and do not pitch) have decreased, suggesting that diners have become more conscious of the hardships faced by restaurants during the lockdown.”
Dineplan provided a breakdown involving major cities.
“In Cape Town, the number of bookings decreased by 50.9% and the number of diners by 59.9%. In Johannesburg, bookings fell by 51.9% and the number of diners by 58%.
“In Durban, bookings declined by 56% and the number of diners by 66%.”
This week, restaurant owners staged a sit-in at the Union Buildings to plead for the resumption of alcohol sales and the lifting of the curfew.
The Restaurants Association of South Africa (RASA) called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to lift the 9pm curfew and ban on alcohol sales before it resulted in the irreversible devastation of the industry.
Chief executive officer of RASA, Wendy Alberts, told Pretoria News they had planned a week long sit-in to be granted an opportunity to hold an inter-ministerial meeting with the President to discuss a workable solution to save the industry immediately.
As it stood, she said the industry was at a critical stage and simply could not continue as it had since the country was moved back to the adjusted level 3.
“We need to balance lives and livelihoods by looking at responsible ways to reopen the industry where we can also play our part.
“By not doing so we’re forcing the trade to go underground and back to house parties in uncontrolled spaces.
“We are custodians of liquor licences so we can advocate responsibly and as it is, we are able to do contact tracing and social distancing along with other regulations and protocols.”