Mixed image in the market from strike to focus

By George Lampiris

The large-scale mobilizations in the catering industry that are taking place today are massive. Typical were the attitudes of restaurant executives with whom he spoke Capital.gr, stating that the problem is located not only in the closed areas of restaurants, where as they pointed out the drop in turnover since the day the new measures were adopted in some cases, especially in cities in the region, more than 70%. The reason is, as they said, that especially in the peripheral cities indoors a large part of the population belonging to the elderly is concentrated. As a result, given the abstention of a portion of this population from the vaccination process, the impact on the focus is immediate.

However, the picture is mixed in large urban centers, such as Athens and Thessaloniki, where in the case of a group of restaurants based in Attica, the owner recently said that in the first weekend of implementation of the measures the stores that host seated customers, and belong to the company , about 40 departures were recorded from groups of customers who did not have the required documents.

It should be noted that yesterday, in the context of today’s nationwide mobilization, the president of the Panhellenic Federation of Restaurants and Related Professions, George Kavvathas, was in Kozani, together with the president of the Central Union of Chambers, Giannis Hatzitheodosiou. perhaps the longest period of restrictive measures and closure of stores, due to its increased epidemiological burden.

The image captured by the city of Northern Greece during the visit of the two institutional persons is that the majority of the businessmen who are active there, were to proceed with the closure of their stores on the day of the strike. Market sources said, however, that in the case of Kozani there were companies such as bakeries, a significant proportion of owners of which stated that it would operate normally as most also serve coffee in the form of takeaway, and therefore consider that the current situation does not affect them. immediately at this time.

In the basin, however, the picture that is observed is that mainly shops with activity in the center of Athens or in places with intense commercial traffic remain open, while smaller neighborhood restaurants choose to participate in the strike.

In conclusion, we should also mention that stores that belong to large chain catering networks, despite the initially rumored that they were going to go out of business, in the end this does not seem to have happened.