Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing lockdown “easing” and restaurants. This has been a big topic the past week that restaurants, yes indeed they are being allowed to reopen although they are being reopened in sort of a truncated manner.

A recent article that I noted from Coconuts that is coconuts.co, the article is titled: I Founded Bo.Lan. This Administration has Failed Restaurants Like Mine. There is a lot in this article. This is from a former restaurant owner here in Thailand. I believe his name is Dylan Jones - co-founder of Bo.Lan. There is a lot in there but one thing, it should be noted if you are reading this article, I would recommend it for folks who are interested in this topic, there is another article from Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, titled: No Jabs Needed for Dining In. As we noted in a video we made contemporaneously with this one The Royal Gazette has come out and said you do not need to have been jabbed in order to eat in restaurants. Although I am not going to quote it, within this article they actually say, they were talking prior to full clarification on this and when they thought that customers had to be jabbed as well. Leaving that aside, there were some interesting insights from a restaurant owner directly that I thought were worth noting in this video. Again this is from Coconuts that is coconuts.co and the article is titled: I Founded Bo.Lan. This Administration has Failed Restaurants Like Mine - Opinion. Quoting directly: "Just recently restaurants have been told that restrictions are being eased and they will be allowed to seat and serve customers once again. Now, before you rejoice and say this is great, let's look at what this "easing" of restrictions really means." Quoting further: "In order to open, a restaurateur must ensure all staff have two doses of a vaccine and/or are tested regularly at the establishment's expense. For a small restaurant with a few staff this might not seem like much, but if you are a bigger establishment like Bo.Lan that at its peak had around 50 staff members, you are looking at an additional expense of, say, THB 20,000 plus per week, minimum. That is essentially 100,000 Baht plus a month extra just to keep the doors open." Quoting further: "Do you think restaurants can raise menu prices 15%-20% and pass this additional cost on to customers?" Quoting further: "If your dining room is air conditioned, you are required to reduce the amount of people you sit by 50%, 75% for non-air conditioned venues. That is 50% less revenue straight off the bat just to pay your overheads. If you factor in that you are not allowed to serve any booze, then let's conservatively say that would mean 20% - 30% of your revenue is lost, gone, kaput." Quoting further: "Now here is the kicker. You have got to shut shop and get everyone out by 8:00 p.m. Think about the average amount of time it would take you and a friend to eat an enjoyable meal. The reality is the restaurant's last sitting is 7:00 p.m. and that is pushing it. You can try to open earlier but in general people eat when they are used to eating. At the end of the day running a restaurant like this you are more likely to see 20% to 25% less revenue than you would ordinarily." 

So again things aren't perfect. I certainly can sympathize with those sentiments. I certainly have my own criticisms of all of this. I think it is definitely, definitely a step in the right direction to be getting things just re-opened so let's be happy for that at the moment. I do think we need to seriously look at that, I mean Thailand the economy cannot sustain itself with those kind of restrictions. Very clearly the food and beverage industry simply can't do that. Now I don't think it is anyone's intention to do that. I don't think it's anyone's intention that this remains forever, at least I hope not and hopefully we will see further movement as the rest of September progresses. From what I have been reading, the implication seems to be that they want to continue easing these restrictions, they don't want to keep maintaining them. Hopefully as September proceeds we will start to see this stuff being pulled back. 

That said, it is definitely good to see things coming back online in terms of the food and beverage industry but as this author noted and again this is from Coconuts, coconuts.co and it is titled: I Founded Bo.Lan. This Administration has Failed Restaurants Like Mine and it is an opinion piece.  Again, I think there is some insight to be had in that article. It is good long article and there is a lot of insight to be had in there. Some of the information has timed out but as far as the insights from restaurateurs. I found this online but I have talked to other folks, friends, clients, folks that are in the food and beverage industry either directly or indirectly and they have all parroted the same thing. They are happy to an extent to see things turning around, but there is no rejoicing going on. Things need to get fully re-opened so that we can start seeing our economy turn back around.