Hallelujah! KFC franchise holder welcomes partial reopening of food sector

“Hallelujah!"

After two and a half months of closure and hardship, with one businessman threatening to break the law and reopen, the word of praise is what Simon Hardy, CEO of Prestige Holdings, used to describe Saturday’s announcement by the Prime Minister of the July 19 partial reopening of the food sector.

However, while owner of Trotters Restaurant Group Peter welcomed the news, he said more needs to done.

Although the reopening is partial, in-house dining is still restricted with Government offering curbside pick up, takeout and delivery, Hardy said they were grateful.

Especially after the financial results for Prestige, the franchise holder of several fast-food chains, including Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Hut, Subway, plus Starbucks and TGI Fridays showed an estimated $18 million loss for 2020.

For the first half of 2021, Hardy said the group has made a loss of $20 million before tax.

“If you look at the results for the first quarter of 2020, we were on a good trajectory before covid19 hit us. The new analysis that has to be done is where would we have been as a country if covid19 had not hit us. That is the real damage.”

Hardy spoke of the difficulties experienced not only by his company, but his suppliers and especially employees.

“It has taken a great toll on them, on (their) financial and mental health, (it) has been very traumatic.”

He said an assessment will have to be done to ascertain whether full staff can be re-employed or whether they would have to be rotated.

“We will try to make sure that we match the amount of business we generate with the amount of employees we would need. I do not know at this stage what that means. It might be less than if we were one hundred percent opened, but we will try to share the work around.”

“We are extremely relieved to hear the PM’s announcement. It has been a very long and hard two and a half months of closure with all of the damage that is being done to cause workers and our company’s financial position to plunge.

“But we have a future ahead of us where we can start to rebuild and we are extremely grateful and hopeful that we would get through this together.

“We hope to be in a position to recover and as I said it's not going to be an overnight thing."

Prestige has offered a $150 daily incentive for employees to take the covid19 vaccines for they sake of all staff and customers.

Last week businessman Steven Hadeed, owner of Luce restaurant, pleaded for at least takeout and delivery, even as he threatened to reopen in spite of the health restrictions. He did not answer his phone when Newsday tried to get his response to the PM's announcement on Saturday.

George, who has bemoaned the damage to the local economy due to the continuing lockdown, said he was thankful that the wheels can get rolling again.

“Obviously, we have been here before, two or three times, open back and shut back down. I have made my position lucidly clear that all of this without assistance to people, businesses would make it almost appear as a putrid victory.

“Opening is simply not enough. The grand plan cannot be just to reopen. It is a welcome step towards normalcy, but the damage for the last 18 months, particularly in the last three months is catastrophic.

“TT faces a very, very uncertain next couple of years so this is s imply not enough,” George said.

Chaud restaurant recently announced its permanent closure after months of being unable to carry on in-house dining.

President of the San Fernando Greater Chamber Kiran Singh welcomed the announcement, so too, president of the Penal/Debe Chamber Rampersad Sieuraj.

Sieuraj said while in his community many of those who operated in the business sector had converted portions of their homes as businesses, he was worried the smaller business operators who had to pay rent many not be able to reopen.