In pictures: What dining out post-lockdown looks like
Image: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
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Retail, Consumer Goods and Lifestyle
- With coronavirus lockdowns starting to lift across the world, restaurants are reopening.
- Social distancing measures and protection for staff mean it all looks very different.
Will eating out ever be the same again after COVID-19? As lockdowns start to ease around the world, restaurants are reopening – but with a very different look and feel to before the coronavirus pandemic.
Restaurateurs and café owners are among those who have borne the economic brunt of stay-at-home policies. Many are desperate to reopen to save their businesses from bankruptcy, but rules on social distancing mean they are having to rethink how they serve their customers - from tables fitted with screens to staff wearing visors and facemasks to individual dining pods.
Here's how restaurants around the world are responding.
Together but apart: Diners eat lunch at a reopened noodle restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, separated by a screen.
Eating pods: People trialling ‘quarantine greenhouses’ at a waterside restaurant in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Coffee culture: A barista in facemask, visor and gloves prepares a cappuccino at a café in Belgrade, Serbia.
Making up for lost time: Customers celebrating the easing of lockdown restrictions at a restaurant in Hanoi, Viet Nam.
Still going: Staff prepare online orders at Ben’s Chili Bowl, Washington DC, US. The restaurant has remained open for 62 years and has served two former Presidents: Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
Pavement protest: Restaurateurs set up a street café outside the presidential office in Kiev, Ukraine, to demand easing of lockdown restrictions for their businesses.
Divided dinner: Screens and floor markings separate diners at a traditional hotpot restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand.
Keep your distance: A customer follows markers at an experimental ‘virus-proof’ McDonald’s restaurant in Arnhem, Netherlands.
High steaks: Alongside their food, diners at the Brooklyn Chop House in New York City's Financial District will be served temperature checks, table dividers and plates and glasses wrapped in plastic.
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