Belfast reopens: ‘Tea-totaller’ is happy to be back on the black stuff as NI hospitality sector returns

Sipping on a Guinness, the 78-year-old from Belfast, said: “I haven’t had a drink for three months.

“I don’t drink in the house so all I would have is tea – I became tea-total. I’ve really been looking forward to this.”

James was surprised that his choice of pubs in the city centre at lunchtime yesterday was limited.

He reckoned those not serving food would find it difficult: “If they can’t serve food, you can’t sit inside so you’d need to have a very big outdoors area and then hope it doesn’t rain.”

James was enjoying his Guinness in Love and Death Inc, a bar he hadn’t been to since it was called the Capstan.

The Ann Street bar’s owner Lee Murphy was thankful to be open again, though the bar had diversified to allow the business to keep running during lockdown.

Lee turned the nightclub section of the venue into a cocktail production factory for a new strand of the business called Booze On The Move.

He said: “We make up the cocktails and deliver them so all anyone has to do is pour them into a shaker with ice. They can also come here to pick them up.

“Two weeks after we were told to shut we started up Booze On The Move and all the staff were brought back in.

“There was 16 people in working, my normal staff was eight. You had people mixing the cocktails then I needed drivers in to do the deliveries.”

He added: “Now that the bar is up and running again we’ve had to bring more doormen in during the day who wouldn’t normally be needed. Their remit now takes in ensuring people are socially distancing.

“Our plan is to put as many tables and chairs out on the street as we can.

“It means when can serve alcohol without serving food. If people want to have a drink inside they need to order food.”

Other safety measures in place include Perspex in front of the bar, clean air machines which have been recently installed and hand sanitizer points throughout the building. To begin with drinks are being served in disposable glasses.

Lee said: “It’s been a crazy few months, we’re very glad to be back doing what we do. We’re lucky to have the cocktail production side of the business to keep us going through this.”

At the Morning Star Bar and Restaurant in Belfast, regulars were waiting at the doors to catch up with friends as well as enjoy their favourite tipple.

Manager James McAlister said it had been fantastic to see all the familiar faces back in the bar.

“It’s slightly different in terms of the new procedures but everyone is abiding by the rules – they just want to see their mates and have a pint,” he told the PA news agency.

He described lockdown as having been tough for the business, and described the year as a “write off” with no tourists in the city.

“It’s not something you ever budget for or envisage happening. We set up an online shop, doing deliveries and an off licence so we were lucky to be able to keep some people off furlough.

“Pulling out seats yesterday we have probably lost about 30% between the bar and restaurant to ensure one metre distancing.

“We have had a couple of people who don’t want to order food, or want to sit at their usual seat or at the bar, and have just gone out. But that’s the rules at the moment, hopefully they change but we just have to abide by them.”

Mr McAlister said he arrived to open the doors at 11.30am to see a group of his regulars waiting, describing it as “nice to see”.

Regular Hugh Morrow was among those waiting, and said lockdown had been a long wait.

“I would come here five times a week and know everyone here, it’s nice to be with my friends again,” he said.

“We can’t sit together, but at least we are in the same place.

“We talked on the phone over lockdown and arranged that on Friday we would all meet here, there was around 12 of us outside, I said to James (the manager), it’s like when the shepherd opens the door and all the sheep come back in again.”

Belfast restaurant Fish City is thought to be the only eaterie in the Province where customers are tested with a wall-mounted head thermometer upon arrival.

Owner of the award-winning restaurant Grainne Lavery explained why they’ve gone to great lengths to ensure they are compliant: “The guidelines of what you can do and can’t do have been a bit of a shambles, so we had to be proactive to make sure we were compliant.

“I think we’re the only people in Northern Ireland to have a freestanding thermal sensor. We’ve had the entire building audited, we’re the first restaurant in Northern Ireland to be Covid-19 compliant.”

She said initially the restaurant would run with a reduced number of staff including some coming off furlough for two days a week. The restaurant hoped to make up for the loss of seating by installing a new seating area on the upper floor and extended the outside terrace.

Grainne said: “It’s going to be very tough for the next year or more. One of the biggest challenges for Belfast is having no tourists.

“We’re now in survival mode. We’re here purely to keep an income stream for our staff and our families. As for profits – non existent.”

She said: “It’s been a daunting task to get here. Everybody was highly stressed about this opening, there was a nervous energy.

“It’s all just up in the air as to how this is going to go. I don’t think there’s anybody in the hospitality industry from hoteliers right down to coffee shops who has a rulebook right now.

“As far as I’m concerned if the government doesn’t step in and help to furlough people for longer, there will be a bloodbath for the hospitality industry.

“Thousands of people who aren’t employable elsewhere will lose their jobs. Where do the chefs go? Where does a waiter go? Those are niche skills.”

At the Grand Central Hotel, customers were also returning. General manager Stephen Meldrum said the hotel had remained functioning through lockdown for key workers.

“It’s been extremely difficult, from a hotelier’s point of view, from Easter time onwards would traditionally be our busiest time of the year so we’ve lost quite a lot of business particularly from the international market,” he said.

Mr Meldrum said that since reopening dates were announced there had been a great deal of interest from across Ireland, with a number of bookings for this weekend.

He said the 300-bedroom hotel was running on a reduced capacity of around 90 bedrooms: “We have done a lot of subtle touches behind the scenes like upping cleaning schedules, subtle signage and extra sanitation points – but it’s important we still deliver a hospitality experience, not a hospital experience.”

The News Letter observed that not all city centre pubs had jumped at the chance to reopen yesterday.

Many popular Belfast bars like the Duke of York, the Harp Bar, Katy Daly’s, Ten Square, Muriel’s and Cuba De Revolution weren’t open for business just yet.

Just like the shops did two weeks ago, it may take pubs some time to get measures in place to allow them to begin trading again, and not all will throw open their doors just because they can.

In terms of shopping it was encouraging to note that as the afternoon wore on the city centre appeared to be attracting a large amount of footfall with most of the retail units now back up and running and people’s confidence about going out increasing.