The restaurants are relieved but the recovery is not coming now

Opening hours start until 22.30 on Saturday, May 1, but are not available to everyone: counties and risky malls maintain restrictions.

Restaurants, cafés and pastry shops will receive customers back in the room, until 22:30, every day, starting on Saturday. The exception will remain in the Seven Counties and risky malls, where opening hours will remain limited until 9 pm on weekdays and until 7 pm on weekends. The news brought satisfaction to the entrepreneurs, but the euphoria was moderate.

“This is good news, but it doesn’t mean saving the sector,” warned Daniel Serra, president of the National Restaurant Association Pro.var. “The restoration is very indebted It will take six to seven years to recoverHe asked the government to announce more support measures.

Anna Jacinto, General Secretary of the Portuguese Association of Hotels and Restaurants and the like, congratulated the government on the decision to expect the absence of a definition, given “the importance of the weekend and Mother’s Day.” However, he noted that the sector is still “mired in a massive crisis” and that “where there are restrictions, there should be support and it should be greater than it was.”

“It’s good news and we hope there will be no need to return. The situation remains more complicated for the hotel industry as long as there is no air transport,” said Condé Pinto, president of the Portuguese Association of Hotels and Restaurants.

Recalls the Secretary-General of the Association of Retail and Restaurant Brands, who feared that there are still thousands of companies going bankrupt and creating tens of thousands of unemployed.

Marco Claudino Torres warned that “the retail and restaurant business has been under severe pressure over the past 14 months, and the lack of support or legislative measures to balance contractual relations will bankrupt thousands of companies and cause tens of thousands of Portuguese to become unemployed.”

Table restrictions
Indoors, the maximum per table / group will be six people, on the stands 10.

Shopping malls apart
Malls should close at 9 PM on the week and 7 PM on the weekends

Drink with meal only
Restaurants can only serve alcoholic drinks at meal times, so they don’t “turn into bars”.