Just because food businesses got a lifeline in the form of the lifting of some restrictions to combat covid19, it doesn’t mean they are out of the woods yet.
In fact, small businesses like those which operate on the food strip at the Frederick Street entrance of the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain are still struggling.
The effect of not being able to run their businesses was so great on some that they have not yet been able to return to the Savannah.
But even as business owners who have been at the Savannah for more than a decade complain of slow traffic and limited time to earn revenue, new hopefuls continue to see the food strip as a place where they can start their own business.
Slow sales at the Savannah
Sheldon Marcano, owner of Tam Faqat Grill, recalled his first day at the food strip at the Savannah 13 years ago as a huge success.
He launched his grilled-food business after advertising the opening for weeks using flyers and word of mouth.
“It was a Friday,” he recalled, “There wasn’t enough goods to provide for the customers that day.”
That opening bore a stark difference to the reopening after covid19 restrictions were lifted on July 19. Describing the first Friday as “worse than a bad Monday,” Marcano said only a few customers patronised his business that day.
Speaking to Business Day last Friday, Marcano added that sales that day had not yet picked up either. It was about 6 pm, and he had only seen three customers since opening at 2 pm.
Others who sell on the food strip, some 32 in total, had the same experience.
One of the reasons for the low returns over the past few weeks is that the curfew, which begins at 9 pm, greatly limits the time they have to sell.
[caption id="attachment_905383" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Darwin ‘General Winky’ Alexander cooks ribs on the grill at the Queen's Park Savannah food strip. - PHOTO BY ROGER JACOB[/caption]
“You have to come here from about midday to start setting up and preparing all the goods. By about 4 pm or after 4 pm people would start trickling in. From there you have two and a half to three hours tops to make money.
“There isn’t much you can do because everyone here knows that the Savannah is about the nightlife. With covid19, after seven everyone is looking to go inside, not come out,” Marcano said.
Manager of the Vendors Association, punch and smoothie vendor Michael Williams, who sells as Doctor Fresh, explained that on a normal day pre-pandemic, vendors at the Savannah would begin to set up at about 2 pm, then business would pick up between 5 pm and 6 pm. At around 7 pm there will be a rush of people, then closer to 9 pm the activity would die down.
But things have not been normal for about two years, even more so with vendors having to work around the restrictions.
“You have to give yourself an hour and a half to pack up, and sometimes even more. So you basically have two and a half hours of business instead of seven
