REUTERS
Catering outlets' turnover has grown as well.
Another 18% of catering outlets have resumed services in Ukraine within a week, on May 11-17, bringing the total share of reopened cafes and restaurants to 62% due to outdoor seating amid the easing of the coronavirus (COVID-19) quarantine.
Read alsoLockdown easing in Ukraine: What will be allowed from May 11
"Thanks to the opening of outdoor seating, the number of establishments that have resumed their work after the quarantine [was eased] has increased markedly. Thus, over the past week from May 11 to May 17, the number of reopened cafes and restaurants jumped immediately by 18% against the previous week, that is from 44% to 62%. For comparison, in April, the growth in the number of institutions that resumed work was below 2%-3%," Poster, a POS app solution provider, said in a statement, having conducted the relevant survey.
Catering outlets' turnover has grown as well. If the average turnover of restaurants and cafes on May 4-10 accounted for a mere 35% of pre-quarantine sales, reopened establishments in the past week began to "generate" 47% of the pre-crisis turnover.
"The first month of the quarantine was the hardest for restaurateurs as every third catering establishment was unable to switch to a food delivery service and had to suspend work," Co-Founder & CEO at Poster Rodion Yeroshek said.
At the same time, he emphasizes that the open-air format does not solve the main problems of the catering industry since due to sanitary and transport restrictions, as well as the need to pay the rent again, the efficiency of many establishments remains in question.
The study is based on operational data received from about 4,000 Ukrainian catering outlets. It is considered that an establishment did not halt its services amid the quarantine if there were sales for at least half of the lockdown period. Sales on February 24, 2020, were taken as a 100% benchmark for the survey.
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers allowed cafes and restaurants to work as open-air seating from May 11.