Restaurants Reopen in São Paulo

São Paulo is a city that never sleeps; one of the most populated cities in Brazil finally started opening their restaurants to the public.

Taking precautions due to COVID-19, Zacarias Carneiro, manager at a restaurant, has seen those precautions through.

“Using masks, gel, distancing tables, diminishing customers, all of these measures of the type. Gloves, we are taking all the measures,” said Carneiro.

Although some restaurants can easily take the right safety measures, by removing table salt, pepper as well as other condiments, the self-service restaurants have taken a toll. They now have to go the extra mile to provide safety for their customers.

Hostess at a self-service restaurant, Eliana Souza, has seen the effects first hand.

“We have been doing delivery, which is a cool job. It’s our food with our quality, but at the customer’s house,” said Souza. “For the people that have been coming in are being careful, scared of being close, but it’s [slow] going. Every day is better.”

But not all restaurants have been as lucky as many of them have permanently closed. The surviving restaurants, due to slow business, had to resort to delivery services to go above and beyond to keep their business afloat. Murilo Henriques Muscato is one of those business owners.

“Delivery helped our restaurant, due to delivery we’re here, we’ve partnered with iFood, Rappi, things of the sort,” said Muscato, business owner. “We also had to invest in Instagram. The self-service restaurants were the most affected by the pandemic.”

As Brazil slowly starts to reopen, the city streets get busier, and the malls get even fuller. But with restaurants finally reopening, customers are getting excited and very eager to go out. Although it might be controversial, Otavio Luiz is delighted yet concerned with the reopening of restaurants.

“If the restaurant is too full, I don’t like it. I feel safer in emptier restaurants. It’s too many people. It’s great now because it’s empty. Now I’m very happy because I can go out to lunch,” said Luiz.