Wismar. “This is my second snack at the moment,” says Sven Marquardt (55) and lights a cigarette. Behind him is the new car from “Larrys Grillimbiss”, his “old” car has been standing in front of the Hagebaumarkt in Gägelow for 14 years.
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The snack bar at the Wismar shipyard site next to the “KrebsCorrosionsschutz” company (Zum Dock 9) is new. “I actually thought the shipyard workers would come, but they probably aren’t allowed out,” was his conclusion after the first four weeks. People from surrounding companies come, but timidly.
I actually thought the shipyard workers were coming.
Sven Marquardt
Wismar snack bar operator
There is little going on at the snack bars
“The same shit everywhere,” comments the entrepreneur. There isn’t enough going on at the snack bar at the Gägelower hardware store either. “I hadn’t even sold a coffee until half past 12 today,” he says. In the summer he has snack bars on the beach, which also didn’t do well this year. “Everything is on the decline here in the country.”
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He has set a deadline for the new snack bar by the end of the year. If it doesn’t work, he closes and sells. “Then I’ll emigrate to Florida!” Word needs to get out about the location. The shipyard workers have to come. “Hardly people come on Mondays because they all bring something with them from home. Few come on Fridays too. And when it rains, no one dares go out the door.”
Hardly worth it
The prices at the new location are moderate: currywurst with fries for 6.50 euros, schnitzel with fries or potato salad for 6.50 euros, pea stew with bockwurst for 4.50 euros, sandwiches with cheese, minced meat, salami or egg for 1, 70 euros, coffee for 1.50 euros.
“But it doesn’t all add up. In the restaurant industry they used to say three to one. One euro to buy, three euros to sell. My original Thuringian bratwurst cost 65 cents when purchased three years ago. Now we are at 1.39 euros. Raw! Then the roll for 20 cents. Mathematically, you’re at 4.80 euros with mustard on sale. Nobody pays that!” For him, the Thuringian bread roll costs 3.50 euros.
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Everything is more expensive
“That doesn’t take into account the fact that gas is twice as expensive and electricity is three times as expensive as it was two or three years ago. And the temporary wages are supposed to rise to 15 euros, who is going to pay for all that?” Anyway, it’s difficult to get good temporary workers. He had to temporarily close his seasonal beach snack bars due to a lack of staff.
The cigarette is smoked out, Sven Marquardt gets going, cursing offices and bureaucratic effort and the Corona help that wasn’t there. During the first Corona lockdown, when the hardware stores had to close, he still had the Gägelower snack bar open. “Sometimes I stood there for five euros a day, I just paid extra.” He took advantage of this “quick support for operational liquidity problems due to the corona crisis”, the “non-repayable help” from the state funding institute. Just like 36,000 other companies in MV.
Snack bar operator should pay back Corona aid
“I got 4,600 euros or so. And now the letter to pay everything back within one month, otherwise enforcement. Are they not quite right in the head?” According to research by NDR, repayments are due for half of these Corona emergency aids. In total, probably around 140 million euros. “Plus the interest, that’s fraud on people!”
Sven Marquardt lights another cigarette. It’s raining. The snack bar, which normally offers breakfast and lunch from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., closes half an hour earlier due to a lack of guests. It would be 25 degrees in Florida right now. But it rains there too.
OZ
