Gastronomy on the Verge of Collapse: How These Restaurants Are Minimizing the Impact of COVID-19

Prague’s restaurant businesses have been innovating and coming up with new ways to keep attracting customers and catch up with their sales. Some sell two portions for the price of one, and some offer weekly home menus, for example.

As E15.cz reports, According to a study conducted by Dotykačka, sales for many restaurants fell by 63 billion CZK in 2020, a sharp decline from a sale of 195 billion CZK in 2019. Conditions have become significantly worse, as one in four businesses is on the verge of complete extinction. At the moment, many employees in gastronomy have had to be laid off.

On the other hand, cafés and bistros have remained intact during the continuing lockdown, since many of them were already created to adapt and use the concept of ‘take-away’ food even before the lockdown started. Sales for these types of places have apparently fallen by only 15%.

Yet there are still restaurateurs who, even after almost a year of pandemic, do not lose hope and have decided to offer their customers an alternative to visiting the hospitality industry. Take a look at our report on Prague companies that have thrown themselves into inventing news for customers.

Eat Perfect

Chef Filip Sajler introduced a new concept last year called EatPerfect.cz. The main idea is to deliver pre-prepared meals to customers. Lovers of good food can plan a menu for the whole week to have it delivered to their home or to their workplace.

“We put the greatest emphasis on the plan. It’s the same as when you plan to buy groceries to have cooking things at home,” says Sajler. “You have food at home for days and you don’t have to worry about anything, then you just plan and order again for the next few days, the selection changes weekly.”

Gourmet Pauza

Gourmet Pauza in Anděl has introduced several innovations. “We decided to set up an e-shop through which people can purchase some of our wines, desserts, and pastries, as well as any food from our menu,” says Pavlína Zemanová, co-owner of Gourmet Pauza.

Due to the continuing lockdown, the restaurant decided to offer a boxed healthy meal in several versions, but at the same time, it also offers customers classic Czech cuisine. Gourmet Pause is now on a quarter of the usual sales, thanks to their implemented ideas. They had to fire one cook and one waitress.

Bruxx

Bruxx is now dealing with the same situation as other businesses, so the operators decided to offer people two portions of mussels for the price of one. The restaurant has also started to offer mussel-like prawns.

Vinohradský Parlament

Vinohradský Parlament is located in the Bruxx neighborhood, and they even have a common background. Bruxx offers specialties mainly from Belgian cuisine, but the Vinohrady Parliament serves mostly Czech classics in both traditional and modern terms.

The restaurant now prepares packed dishes in boxes, so customers can heat them up at home and enjoy, for example, blueberry dumplings or pepper pods.

Jemný Bistro

This bistro is located outside the center of Prague, but this did not take away its popularity even during the lockdown.

“We have always emphasized tasty and quality dishes and wines in connection with entertainment and live music. Of course, the social part has disappeared, but we will never give up quality raw materials, despite financial difficulties,” says Kristýna Amaya, co-owner of Jemný Bistro.

They decided to operate in a completely different way than usual. It does not have a permanent menu, but every day it invents something different for its customers, so one chooses only in the picking window or over the phone.

At the same time, the bistro began to sell farm eggs and beers from small breweries.

 

 

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