Many lunch restaurants are on their knees and there are still far fewer customers there than before the pandemic, according to the trade association Visita. This is partly due to the recommendation to work from home.
Anders Hedin, runs several lunch restaurants in Gothenburg, including Kooperativet, for Ekot.
– We have unfortunately had to get rid of many employees so we are a much smaller staff inside. We have tried to adjust our costs. But it’s very, very tough.
It’s something more customers queuing to buy lunch now, than right at the beginning of the pandemic, he says. But his restaurants have still lost around half of sales compared to usual and the question is how long companies can cope with the large loss.
– We do not know how long it will last and if we will manage. It is difficult when you have large rooms that are adapted for a certain number of guests and then half disappear, he says to Ekot.
According to the trade association Visita, many lunch restaurants are having a hard time now. These are mainly lunch restaurants in the central parts of the cities or at office complexes.
– The data we have indicates that they have lost 50 percent of their sales since March, on a general level. A big part of that, I mean, is that we are recommended to work from home. Much of the consumption has moved out of the city centers to places closer to housing, says Thomas Jakobsson, chief economist at Visita, to Ekot.
There is a there is a great risk that more and more lunch restaurants will miss again, he says.
– The longer the time passes, the more people will throw in the towel. We have already seen it done. We have seen that some restaurant owners wind up the business, and this is not visible in the bankruptcy statistics, says Jakobsson.
Anders Hedin believes that the recommendation to work from home is the biggest reason why fewer customers come to his restaurants and he therefore wants to see more support from the state to affected companies, such as an extended adjustment support.
– Because you can not sit and say that we should be open and that we can manage ourselves, at the same time as you tell everyone else that you should work from home. It will be very difficult then, he says to Ekot.