Jorge Santos, a restaurant entrepreneur and responsible for BB Gourmet in Campo Alegre, Porto, knows by heart the script for the new rules he will have to implement at his establishment when the Government allows restaurants to reopen safely in the context of the pandemic of Covid-19.

“The customer must book to be able to access the restaurant. Upon arrival we will measure the customer's temperature and, if it does not correspond [to a safe value], you will not be able to enter. Then take it to the table. At the table, we will leave about two meters away for the next table. The choice of the menu will be in an application on the mobile phone or on the ‘tablet’ in the restaurant ”, lists Jorge Santos, armed with a mask, visor and gloves.

The businessman's contingency plan to combat covid-19 foresees that food orders arrive at the table with employees always wearing visors, masks and gloves.

The payment is ‘online’ or in cash to encourage you not to have to change, he adds, referring to having the capacity to serve between 40 and 50 people simultaneously. In pre-covid-19 times it had capacity for about 100 customers simultaneously.

The measurement of body temperature for employees at the entry and exit of shifts, as well as the realization of covid-19 tests, are other measures that restaurant businessmen consider important.

In an interview with Lusa, the president of the national restaurant association PRO.VAR (Promote and Innovate National Restoration) defends the implementation of mandatory covid-19 tests for "all employees in the catering sector" and "financed by the Government".

“It was important for the Government to do a screening every 15 days or weekly for all employees in order to allow practically absolute security”, defends Daniel Serra.

The association also recommends businesspeople in the sector to do a “complete disinfection” of tables and chairs after customers leave.

“There has to be absolute safety from the workers and trust from the customer to frequent the restaurant. We want to have extreme security, so that there is extreme confidence and for us to be an example for the world and for tourism to return ”, declares Daniel Serra.

The issue of the distance between customers at the restaurant table and the temperature measurement of workers at the entrance and exit of work and of customers at the entrance are other proposals validated by the restaurant association.

Sanitizing the space at night through air conditioning with products that are placed in a general way is also part of the list of new rules proposed by PRO.VAR to the Government.

The association also recommends businesspeople in the sector to do a “complete disinfection” of tables and chairs, after the customers leave.

The measures proposed by the association will add to the cost of restoration and “will not be economically viable” at the beginning, observes the association's president, calling on the Government to have “good sense in creating measures other than to increase costs”.

Manuel Pinheiro, 36 years in the restaurant and owner of the restaurant Gaveto, in Matosinhos, in the district of Porto, declared to Lusa that the pandemic was an “atomic bomb” that happened in the world and that reached the restaurant sector and that the way fighting the common enemy - the new coronavirus - will involve implementing security measures that should cover all restaurants in the country fairly.

“Closing is easy, but then opening is not. (…) There is no magic solution for six months or a year ”, says Manuel Pinheiro, arguing that the measures taken are the result of collaboration between the Government, industry associations and entities that oversee the sector and that these measures“ readjusted every two weeks ”, having as priority the health of the Portuguese.

The PRO.VAR association, which claims to have met with several parliamentary groups and with the Secretary of State for Tourism, Rita Marques, calls on the Government to extend support to the sector, namely in the 'lay-off', until the end of the year.