“Bad dream”, “disaster”, “terrible”. The restaurateurs can no longer find the words. On March 14th, in the middle of a gunshot, the decision to close shop at midnight fell on them. Brutal. “We had to lower the curtain the same evening. The fridges were full. We lost all the stock of goods, ”says Karine Séchet-Kurtz, manager of the Winstub tea room restaurant at the Geric shopping center. Since then, it is the paperwork that occupies their days and sometimes also the search for alternative solutions. Because if for most restaurateurs and coffee makers, the activity has been stopped for a month, others are working to reinvent themselves to “save the furniture”. Brigitte and Alain Jominet of La popote à Jo rue de l’Ancien-Hôpital in Thionville are among them and now offer two take-out meals per week. “It is another organization. Everything is conditioned to be picked up on site or delivered within a radius of 15 kilometers. The aid promised by the state in March is not coming and we will probably be the last to reopen. We try to hold on as best we can. “
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“I’m going to have to start from scratch”
Nor did the presidential speech earlier this week light their lanterns, although more aid has been promised. “We are in the most complete blur,” continues Bruno Clément, manager of the restaurant Les Moulins Bleus, Cour du Mersch in Thionville, which estimates his operating loss at 280,000 euros. For my part, so far, I’m not doing too badly: I live on my cash from last year and my owner has offered to defer the rents which gives me some oxygen. But everything I put aside will be spent after this crisis and I will have to start from scratch. Also unclear around the reopening, no date has been brought up. Leave again, but when? Only speculation feeds the debate. “Mid-June”, hopes Bruno Clément, “mid-July”, table the manager of the Winstub.
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“I don’t want to have to fire”
Karine Séchet-Kurtz says it straight away: “I took out a loan from my bank to last until mid-July”, after which the activity will have to start again. “It remains to be seen under what conditions, if it is a table out of two, it will mean half the figure. I hope not to be obliged to leave staff on the way, it is already difficult to recruit with the proximity of Luxembourg, I do not want to have to dismiss … “. For the time being, its eleven employees are on partial unemployment like those of Moulins Bleus. Brigitte and Alain Jominet, on the other hand, if they worry about their survival, and there is reason, they also worry about their retirement contributions: “The loss of turnover leads to a loss of quarters. It’s double trouble for us because we’re two years away from the keel. We will have to hold on. ”
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