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The iconic venues that might be lost to social distancing rules

Harry's Bar in Venice has announced it won't be reopening yet, and more iconic venues may follow suit - getty
Harry's Bar in Venice has announced it won't be reopening yet, and more iconic venues may follow suit - getty

Could reopening under social distancing guidelines be doing more harm than good to our favourite bars and restaurants?

Throughout the lockdown, worries have been high about the impact of forced closure on the global hospitality industry. But as we emerge from stasis, it’s becoming clear that the way bars and restaurants around the world are being asked to reopen may be just as damaging.

Italy was among the latest countries to allow such venues to reopen on May 18, but many cafés, bars and restaurants weren’t rejoicing. Most notably, Harry’s Bar in Venice, an 89-year-old institution, publicly announced it would not be resuming service; potentially not ever.

The reason? Social distancing.

Arrigo Cipriani, the son of the bar’s founder, Giuseppe Cipriani, complained of the restrictions in the Corriere del Veneto: “With those guidelines, it is impossible. These are crazy conditions written by clueless people, and if they stay this way, we won’t be opening – not on Monday, not ever.”

While many are aware of the danger the lockdown poses to smaller hospitality businesses, the news that a bar as much a part of Venice as its gondolas and canals could end up a casualty of Covid-19 may come as a shock. It also raises concerns about the other beloved venues we may be at risk of losing in the coming months.

Harry's Bar, serving its signature cocktail, the Bellini - getty
Harry's Bar, serving its signature cocktail, the Bellini - getty

Veneto’s new safety requirements are largely in line with what has been introduced around the world. Tables must be spaced two metres apart, with four metres of space per customer, and other stipulations include increased ventilation and mandatory reservations.

These spacing rules, while designed to help prevent a second wave of the virus, make it incredibly difficult for hospitality businesses - which usually run at wafer thin margins - to turn a profit. “I know I would have to lay off at least 50 employees out of the current 75 if I wanted to open like this,” confirmed Cipriani.

Cipriani’s voice joins a wave of restaurant and bar proprietors warning about the repercussions of social distancing in their establishments.

The man behind London's iconic Milk & Honey bar, Jonathan Downey spoke of the struggles facing restaurants in particular. “If they’re not operating at nearly full capacity, it’s going to be very difficult for restaurants, especially fine-dining establishments, to get back to any sort of commercial viability,” he told The Telegraph.

Downey, who's opened over 20 bars, clubs and restaurants in London, Ibiza, Chamonix and Melbourne, added: “What this virus has done is expose some of the fragility of the business models in our sector.

Milk & Honey is known for its stellar cocktails and speakeasy theme - @joanna.lin/Instagram
Milk & Honey is known for its stellar cocktails and speakeasy theme - @joanna.lin/Instagram

“People think going into a busy restaurant, ‘they must be raking it in’, but that’s just not the case. That’s why some of the best known venues may struggle to reopen.”

Downey pointed to the example of Danny Meyer in New York, who’s behind famed restaurants like Gramercy Tavern, The Modern and Maialino, as well as the Shake Shack brand.  Despite his fame, Meyer isn’t planning to open any of his venues until September at the earliest. “It’s because people just won’t be going back in the numbers he needs to make it financially viable,” explained Downey.

“Most bars wouldn’t be able to have a sustainable future under any social distancing guidelines either,” added Edmund Weil, who co-owns a number of London’s most lauded bars: including Swift, Nightjar and Oriole. “To give an example, Ronnie Scotts in Soho, just to break even, needs 90% occupancy. I’m really struggling to think of a venue that can survive in its present state under social distancing. Maybe The Savoy.”

Weil’s own bars aren’t exempt from this: “Even with a one-metre distance [between guests], we’d lose 25 to 30 per cent capacity. We’ve run the financials and it’s not pretty.

“Without a little bit more support, a lot of venues are going to go out of business very quickly. I’ve already been offered a lot of sites in the last month, left vacant by businesses which aren’t quite at Harry’s level, but that would make you go ‘woah, are you serious?’”

Siren at The Goring is the first major London restaurant to announce its permanent closure - The Goring
Siren at The Goring is the first major London restaurant to announce its permanent closure - The Goring

The first of London’s major hospitality casualties have already come to light, with Michelin-starred Texture and Nathan Outlaw’s Siren at The Goring announcing over the weekend that they would not be reopening after the UK lockdown is lifted.

Germany’s hospitality sector is struggling too. Though restaurants in the country are now allowed to receive guests between 6am and 10pm, take a look at one of the country’s dining hubs, the district of Mitte in Berlin, and you’ll find few actually open.

The ones that have flung open their doors have struggled to drum up business, thanks to the continued absence of the tourists and theatergoers who would usually make up much of their clientele.

A ten-year-old Franco-German restaurant, Föllerei is one such iconic Berlin restaurant that remains closed. “The future looks bleak,” owner Christiane Föll told The Guardian.

Föll, who has already had to lay off two of her four employees, went on to say that if she were to remove just one of her tables, she would struggle to cover her running costs.

Berlin's restaurants are struggling to reopen despite being permitted to - getty
Berlin's restaurants are struggling to reopen despite being permitted to - getty

International tourism is another factor. “If you think about our best restaurants in London, like Clove Club and Lyles - those who get on the World’s 50 Best list - around 30 per cent of their customers are international food tourists who want to eat in London’s best restaurants,” said Downey. “They’re not going to be coming here with these quarantine rules. So it’s going to be a long road back for them.”

“At Harry’s Bar, which is volume based, their rent is stratospheric so they pump those bellinis out at 19 euros a pop to tourists. That’s their model. So I’m more worried about those sorts of operations,” agreed Weil. “You wonder how they’re going to get enough bums on seats.”

What’s the solution? Along with cuts in the VAT rate and continued government support, one possibility could be the optimisation of outdoor spaces, where the risk of contracting the virus substantially lowers.

This has proved successful in Copenhagen, where Noma has managed to transform itself into an outdoor burger bar that can seat up to 60. The Lithuanian capital of Vilnius has gone even further, turning its streets and squares into one giant outdoor café.

Downey champions bringing forward the reopening date for hospitality businesses that fit this criteria in the UK. Citing the different levels of the virus across the country, Downey called for venues with outdoor spaces, in areas with a lower ‘R’ rate, to be allowed to reopen much sooner than the Government’s planned July 4 date.

“Up until now, the Government has just applied the same rules throughout the country, but that shouldn’t be the case anymore. We have to be more targeted than that,” he said.

Weil agreed with this, advocating for a gradual reopening rather than an ‘all at once’ approach: “As the virus goes down, people’s willingness to go out will go up, so to me the only way to reopen without a bloodbath is to follow that gradual curve.”

“I would make it possible for places with beer gardens and rooftop bars, where the risk of transmission is much less, to reopen sooner. You’d get fewer venues open but they’d be busier, then the choice would get bigger as consumer confidence returned and there was less need for distancing.”

Giving responsibility back to venue owners may also help offset these difficulties. “We are experts in customer safety, and should be allowed to just get on with it,” said Downey. “There’s panic stories about people overwhelming venues, but that won’t happen. People will stay away in droves, like they did just before lockdown.”

“Yes, there’ll always be the odd transgression, but that’s just public life. We've just got to live with it as a society and allow the 95 per cent who can behave reasonably and in consideration of others to get on with their lives. Because we cannot remain locked down like this for that much longer.”

If a quicker reopening is allowed, it may not be of much use to either Weil or Downey. “We’ve thought about this a lot, but I’d much rather open in September or October with much less stringent social distancing, than I would in July,” said Weil, who counts three intimate basement properties among his portfolio of bars.

Of Downey’s London properties, he says he’ll only be able to reopen, at most, three locations. Milk & Honey, despite its status, is one of his businesses at risk of permanent closure. “I own a 1,000-capacity venue in Shoreditch called Dinerama, which is phenomenally successful,” he added, “but I’m not going to be able to reopen that for another six months to a year due to its inability to accommodate distancing.”

In the interim, Downey has been campaigning for an agreed rent freeze for the hospitality sector, and Weil recently launched pre-bottled cocktail delivery from Swift, Nightjar and Oriole, which will go nationwide this week.

“I think it’s going to take ingenuity for anyone to get through this,” he added.