Catering: abolition of closing hours not a day too early

This means, among other things, that you can go out again until the small hours and you can sit around one table or at the bar with as many friends as you want. The Bruges catering industry is happy that there is finally a perspective again, because the urge to go full out again is great in the sector.

The abolition of closing hours in the catering industry comes not a day too soon. That is what Erik Beunckens, Managing Director of Federation Cafés of Belgium (FedCaf) says. “Our sector is really in a very precarious situation,” says Beunckens. “It has all taken far too long. Support for the cafes has disappeared far too quickly, which means that many of us are really in trouble. We do not know the final toll yet, but after a survey of our members, I fear that the current 13,000 cafes there will be less than 10,000 left by the end of 2022.” In Bruges, there have been 15 bankruptcies in the catering industry in the past 2 years, although not all of them were covid-related.

Beunckens also regrets that the mouth mask obligation for staff is still maintained. “That’s really weird,” he says. “It is incredibly tiring and disruptive. Customers are allowed to take off their mouth masks, while they only had to wear this when they moved, but for us that is a whole day that we sit with it. We ask that this also be changed.”