After the hospitality industry had held its collective breath on reopening for many weeks, today saw Prime Minister Boris Johnson finally confirm 4th July as the day hospitality can start the process of rebuilding.
He specifically named restaurants and pubs in his remarks to the house, and went on to say: “All hospitality indoors, will be limited to table service, and our guidance will encourage minimal staff and customer contact.”
He went on to say that Government will ask all hospitality venues to collect customer data in an effort to aid the track and trace process. This was not explained in detail, we expect the Downing Street briefing later today to set this out. This would put another time consuming and costly responsibility on businesses and alongside the many other changes to hospitality provision in future.
At the moment the hospitality industry in England will be celebrating the news and this includes Nick Mackenzie, Greene King CEO who told us:“It is great that we finally have the news we’ve all been waiting for; a confirmed opening date for pubs and a change to social distancing from two metres to one.
“It is a welcome relief for pub operators, our team members who want to get back to work and of course our customers who have been missing their local pub. We now urgently need the detailed government guidelines so that we can check we have the correct measures in place to reopen safely for our team members and customers.”
Commenting on the Prime Minister’s announcement, UKHospitality Chief Executive Kate Nicholls said: “While many venues will endeavour to reopen on 4th July, capacities will be constrained by social distancing and some may be unable to trade viably at all, so continued Government support will remain crucial.”
We look forward to reporting further on more reopening news this afternoon from the Downing Street briefing.
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Hospitality reopening confirmed today – 23 June 2020 – Hospitality reopening confirmed today