‘When Will Restaurants Reopen After Lockdown?’ Finally Has an Answer

For London’s restaurants, this is where the road to reopening begins.

It is six weeks before companies are legally allowed to do more than the things that kept them afloat last year: snack, delivery and meal sets will make way for al fresco dining on April 12, while the dining rooms themselves reopen Come a month later, on May 17th. The government assumes that a return to a kind of “normalcy” cannot be expected any earlier than June 21st.

Critically, the restaurants have learned that they received something else with their roadmap: money and confirmation that their critical support systems will not be turned off before they can reopen as planned. The government has confirmed wage protection, tax cuts and grants for the next six months and more. For a long time, restaurants have believed they have a plan and just enough support. You have hope.

However, the biggest problem that threatens to undermine the future of the industry has not been satisfactorily resolved. Now the focus is on the rent again. Restaurant tenants and their landlords need a solution somewhere. Ideally from the government. Otherwise, rental debts will not only block the way to reopening, but will also stand in the way of gastronomy and its ability to survive.