Very little relief on the menu for restaurants

south Africans waited with bated breath on 24 May to find out what the government had decided about the lockdown level we would be living under as of 1 June. And while many business owners would have breathed a collective sigh of relief, there are still a vast number of businesses that are not going to be permitted to operate at full tilt – or at all – come 1 June.

Since the national lockdown was first implemented in March, the restaurant industry has been hard-hit. estimates that the lockdown has left close to 800 000 people in the industry without an income. This compares with the 430 000 employees in the country’s mines, according to Stats SA figures. Since the lockdown