Today I was scrolling through the list of the available restaurants delivering in our area on Zomato. This was to order food for the security guards of my society. I noticed that the restaurant that was my favourite for the Sunday morning brunch for many years was missing from the list. Something broke inside me. I know now that they have closed down. Another one that was fairly recent but delivered awesome Italian food has also shut down. And many more I suppose have either packed up or are on the verge. My eyes got misty. Not because I am missing some of the best food (that of course I am) but also because I know that theses restaurants were the lifelines for those many young people who cook, clean and deliver. These restaurants were / are also the brainchildren of the young upwardly mobile entrepreneurs; otherwise who can expect the best Italian or Lebanese or any other type of cuisines from across the world, to be delivered right at your footsteps, at a reasonable price?
Where have all those people gone? The cooks, the waiters, the delivery boys/ girls?
The human toll of this lockdown is unprecedented and extremely scary. The fear of hunger and homelessness is worse than the fear of the disease.
Quickly and very quickly, the restaurants need to convert more into the delivery and takeaway centres. They need to put up the pictures and videos of hygienic conditions onto their websites and also collaborate with Swiggy, Zomato etc on this. They have to have a strategy in place to build the trust with their patrons once again. This trust will have a totally different format – a patron should be thoroughly convinced that the food they are buying is completely contactless. Technology is a great enabler. Lot of measures need to be taken fast by all the stakeholders to survive in this crisis which may take a pretty long time to end.
Deepsh27 