(left) Master Chef Goh Ah Seng and Lawrence Ang
KUCHING (May 9): The Covid-19 pandemic has continued to weigh down on businesses that would otherwise benefit from Mother Day’s celebration, which is today.
Hoi Tin Lau Restaurant founder and culinary advisor, Master Chef Goh Ah Seng, told thesundaypost that the number of bookings had dropped drastically for this coming Mother’s Day celebration, versus those received during pre-pandemic times.
“Although the existing SOP (standard operating procedure) allows dine-in services, a table can only be seated with a limited number of diners.
“Some customers are also afraid of going out in view of the worsening Covid-19 situation,” said Chef Goh.
He lamented that the business had dropped by over 70 per cent – even the introduction of special packages for takeaways and other promotions had not helped much.
“Many of our customers dislike order our food via takeaway. This is mainly because dining-in is always considered as an enjoyable experience.
“They (customers) would order less if they had to opt for takeaways.”
Chef Goh said the further tightening of existing SOP recently had adversely affected the business of eateries, with many recording significant reduction in customer’s volume.
Concurring with the chef was Hon Ang Restaurant manager Lawrence Ang, who observed that sales generated from takeaway service were not as good as the turnover from dine-in receipts.
“Customers who opt for takeaway service tend to order from the a la carte menu, instead of choosing items from our specially-tailored dining packages for Mother’s Day.
“Even then, they would order just a few items,” he said.
The main reason being customers would have home-cooked some of the meals and only buy a few dishes from the restaurant, he added.
Ang further said the requirement of limiting a table to have only five diners was not favoured by the customers; moreover, certain dishes were just not the meant to ‘takeaway items’.
“For many big families, they reject the suggestion of not allowing dining-in at the same round table, but there are some who, understandably, are still very concerned about Covid-19.
“Any way you look at it, the response to our Mother’s Day dining packages had been lukewarm,” said Ang.
According to the latest SOP from National Security Council, only a maximum of five people in a group are allowed to be in the public places throughout the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) in Sarawak, in force until May 17.
On the other end of the spectrum, florist Hazel Lai said the Covid-19 pandemic had not affected her business too badly – on the contrary, the sales for Mother’s Day celebration had been encouraging.
“I feel that compared to other businesses such as those involving food and beverage, our line seems ‘pretty much shielded’ from the pandemic, as our customers continue to order flowers from us,” said Lai, who is the founder of ‘The Ladyflora’.
Still, she admitted that the sales during the pre-pandemic times were much better.