As a result of lockdown, almost 10,000 licensed premises – including pubs, clubs and restaurants permanently closed across the UK.

UK hospitality estimated that there were around 640,000 job losses across the sector.

The Brothers Chicken and Pizza in Weaste and Seedley opened in October 2019. Unlike other takeaways and restaurants in the area were not greatly affected by the pandemic due its newness, team member Dilshad said “It didn’t make any difference for us. We were closed around this time. We were just doing deliveries so we didn’t feel the effects.”

With the latest variant, Omicron, which was discovered in Amsterdam in mid-November 2021, there have been talks of whether or not there could be another lockdown.

The New Statesmen reported that since Omicron, restaurants have lost more than a fifth of their customers and predict a four-billion-pound loss for the industry as a whole.

Now coming down from its peak, however, there is a chance that premises can once again aim to achieve their pre-covid goals.

Salford resident Nicholas Sarakinis, 20, says “Some people have been more cautious because the amount of cases has risen a lot. A lot of people I know also tested positive over the Christmas break.”

“A lot of these people are also people who haven’t caught covid before. If it’s Omicron or not I don’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some correlation, there. It is interesting though as although there’s been a big rise in cases, it doesn’t seem like anyone is as reluctant to go out like they were earlier in the pandemic”

Between 23 December 2021 and 5 January 2022 there were 274,470 new Omicron cases detected in the UK. The Delta variant saw 20,056 new cases. Now, with the peak of the variant over, restaurants are getting busier and surely are hoping to get back to how they were before the pandemic.

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