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THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA (AP) — Before
the pandemic began, the Leo
restaurant prided itself on taking
customers on a culinary journey
through Colombia.
Inside the refurbished colonial
home, diners feasted on set menus
of at least 12 courses that included
a thin slice of Pirarucu ish from the
Amazon wrapped in its own skin and
abite-sizeportionof Caribbeanduck
stew, served on a purple corn tortilla
and topped with edible lowers.
Dining at Leo’s has been banned
since mid-March, when Colombia
started to enforce social distancing
measures. So chef Leonor Espinosa
now uses her restaurant’s kitchen
to make takeout dishes like meat
tacos that are cheaper to make and
easier to carry in cardboard boxes.
“We had to ind some way to
mitigate the impact of this crisis,”
said Espinosa, who has been forced
to lay off about half of her staff. “So
we’ve created a take away brand
that is more suited to the current
needs of the market.”
The virus has punished the
industry severely as sales plummet
and restaurant owners are stuck
with ixed costs like rent. That’s
prompted some places to reinvent
themselves in order to stay aloat.
In Argentina, the Don Julio
steakhouse ranked 34
th
on San
Pellegrino’s list of the world’s top
restaurants last year. Now it has
become a butcher’s shop that
delivers cuts of organic beef to
customers around Buenos Aires.
Chef Pablo Rivero said he prefers
to sell raw cuts of his prized beef
to stufing his dishes into takeout
boxes without compromising their
quality. The butcher’s business has
helped him to avoid laying off staff.
“This helps us to stretch our funds”
he said.
In Chile, where eating in at
restaurants has been banned since
March, prize-winning El Europeo
has suspended its tastingmenu and
stopped cooking lamb tenderloin
and octopus imported from the
remote Robinsoe Crusoe island.
Now El Europeo runs a delivery
service that features pizza, sushi
and beef tartare.
“It’s time to lay egos aside and
ight for our survival,” saidMaxRaide,
one of the restaurant’s owners.
Some famous restaurants have
had to cease operations altogether
while they ride out the storm. In
Colombia’s capital, La Puerta Falsa
has been serving hot chocolate
and tamales since 1816, surviving
the nation’s independence war, a
guerrilla attack against a nearby
Supreme Court building and a riot
in 1948 that burned down most of
Bogota’s centre.
The coronavirus lockdown has
forced the historic restaurant to
lay off its staff of 14 and close its
colonial-era building until social
distancing measures are lifted.
“We don’t know how to do
takeout,” said Carlos Sabogal,
84, whose family has owned the
restaurant for six generations. “I
also worry that if we did that, the
taste of our products would just not
be the same as what our clients are
used to.”
In
Cuba,
the
restaurant
business, which depended largely
on tourism, has ground to a halt.
But the state-run economy ensures
Iconic restaurants adapt to lockdowns in
Latin America
the survival of traditional places like
La Bodeguita del Medio.
The restaurant, which helped
to popularise a drink and was
once a favourite haunt of Ernest
Hemmingway, has been state-
owned since the early sixties, when
it was nationalised by Fidel Castro.
Its employees have been sent
home and are still paid a portion of
their USD30 a month state wage.
But they are missing out on tips
from tourists that normally triple
their salaries.
Elsewhere in Latin America,
where themarket economyprevails,
many restaurants are going under.
DirectorofColombia’srestaurant
association Guillermo Gomez said
that by the end of May, 27,000 of
the country’s 90,000 restaurants
had shut down for good as they
struggled to pay rent, salaries and
public services with little income.
Gomez said that sales from
takeout have failed to make up for
revenue lost from in-person service.
Restaurants have also struggled to
secure loans as the government
provides little clarity on when they
will be able to host customers
again, or under which rules. “Banks
now see us as a high risk business,”
Gomez said.
Those with some savings
continue to soldier on with smaller
staff, while elite eateries prepare for
a more austere future. Colombian
chef Leonor Espinosa said that
she might be “less rigid” when her
restaurant can once again resume
in-person service, and may offer
a la carte
options along with her
elaborate tasting menu.
But she said she will continue
to make experimental dishes with
exotic ingredients from remote
corners of Colombia. “We are not
going to give up on our philosophy,”
Espinosa said. “We will continue to
connect people with territories.”
MANILA, PHILIPPINES (AP) — The
Philippines’ iconic passenger jeep-
ney was one of the irst casualties
of the country’s coronavirus out-
break, with the government impos-
ing a tight lockdown that sidelined
Manila’s “king of the road” and its
thousands of poor drivers.
The restrictions imposed three
months ago barred most public
transport, forcing the gaudily deco-
rated jeepneys off the road.
Many of the jobless drivers have
resorted to begging in the streets,
displaying cardboard signs bearing
pleas for money and food on their
jeepneys. “A little help please for us
drivers,” one sign said.
In a once-bustling passenger
terminal in suburban Quezon city’s
Tandang Sora village, about 35
drivers have turned their jeepneys
into tiny shelters. They squeezed
in cooking stoves, a few spare
clothes, cellphone chargers and
electric fans to ight off the tropi-
cal heat and mosquitoes in the
cramped passenger compartment
where they have now lived and slept
for months.
“We have no income now. We
have nothing to spend for our chil-
dren,” said Jude Recio, a distraught
driver with three children. “I hope
we’ll be allowed to drive again.”
Well before the outbreak began,
jeepneys had already been threat-
Virus sidelines iconic Philippine jeeps, drivers
A butcher cuts meat at Don Julio butcher’s shop in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Don Julio’s steakhouse turned itself
into a high-end delivery butcher shop after the restaurant was forced to close due to COVID19. PHOTO: AP
ened by a government programme
to modernise public transport and
phase out ageing vehicles.
The diesel-powered jeepneys
that are popular among the work-
ing class cough out dark fumes
which have been blamed for Ma-
nila’s notoriously polluted air.
The jeepneys evolved from
United States (US) military jeeps
that American forces left behind
after World War II. The vehicles
were modiied and then were re-
produced, many based on a sec-
ond-hand truck chassis, and for de-
cades were the most popular form
of land transport and a showcase of
Philippine culture on wheels.
The modernisation programme
aims to make over jeepneys by
improving their engines, safety
and convenience.
Many have electric engines and
are called “e-jeeps.” They are big-
ger, safer and more environmen-
tally friendly, but no longer are a
head-turning icon.
The government eased the lock-
down this month to re-open the
slumping economy, allowing newer
passenger vehicles to return to the
road under strict quarantine regu-
lations. But the traditional jeepneys
remain sidelined.
The drivers in the Tandang Sora
terminal have started sprucing up
their jeepneys, hoping they can
roll back onto the streets soon. But
they fear that even if they and their
jeepneys survive the pandemic,
the government’s modernisation
programme will still bring them
to extinction.
“The government should study
this programme very well because
we cannot afford the new jeeps. A
lot of people will lose their jobs,”
Recio said.
FROM LEFT: The Recio family sleeps inside their passenger jeepney at a terminal which has been home for them in Quezon city, the Philippines ; and
Arthur Vinluan, 62, sits on a passenger jeepney beside a sign that says “sorry we’re not yet in operation” at the Tandang Sora terminal. PHOTOS: AP