After a temporary closure due to the recent COVID lockdown, Lebanese Abdullah Khodor, usually called AK by friends and customers, was finally given the green light to reopen his halal restaurant Umami in Bagualing area, Futian District, with dine-in services allowed starting yesterday.

Although customers were not allowed to dine indoors last week, AK was still confident in his business because his frequent customers told him during the lockdown that they are still eager to buy food from his restaurant.

“The landlord has also agreed to discuss rent reduction after we brought this up,” he said. AK came to Shenzhen in 2018 and established Umami in 2019.

During the reporter’s visit to the restaurant last week, there was only one staffer helping there besides AK.

AK works with an employee on March 23 during a Shenzhen Daily reporter's visit to the restaurant. Wang Jingli

AK told Shenzhen Daily that he has four staffers in total. However, only one of them was available to work because others lived in areas where the lockdown hadn’t been fully lifted.

“She (the staffer) is the pizza cook, and I’m personally responsible for everything else — burgers, tacos, snacks ... etc. So far, we’re doing fine, but I’m definitely looking forward to the return of dine-in services, and having customers return,” AK said last week.

At present, the restaurant has no supply difficulties as most of their suppliers are based in the city. The only thing different is that the restaurant has cut its opening hours by one hour for daily COVID tests.

On Wednesday, the restaurant’s first reopening day, the order volume was about half the total delivery orders from the previous business day, according to AK.

Most of Umami’s delivery orders are made via Meituan, China’s largest on-demand service platform handling online food deliveries and restaurant orders. AK, however, suggested that the platform took a fair share of money from each customer’s order, which is not helping the situation.

AK showed the reporter an online order from Meituan where a customer paid 161.2 yuan (US$25.3) in total while the restaurant received some 127 yuan from the platform.

“Another challenge for us now is that more citizens prefer to cook at home, and they don’t buy as much as they used to due to the COVID lockdown. I think that it will take about four to five months for us to return to normal,” he said.

The city has issued a slew of measures to support the catering industry, which was the hardest hit by the epidemic.

Futian District offered support worth up to 1 million yuan for catering companies based on turnover and a maximum 20,000 yuan for eateries located in lockdown and control areas, according to related policies.