Daniel Nawenstein and his team painted the plexiglass panes as happily as possible: with laughing males and fleecy clouds.

"I wish we hadn't done that," says Nawenstein.

“I already hate these things, so that doesn't help anymore.” Nawenstein sits in his Frankfurt restaurant “La Cevi” and looks full of contempt at half of the panes that he has parked in the back corner of his terrace .

If you look at Nawenstein through the plexiglass, you cannot see it directly.

But if you sit across from him, it becomes clear that everything seems to be repeating itself in these November days - one association representative speaks of a “déjà vu” - but the situation is very different from a year ago.

Sarah Obertreis

Editor in business.

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In November 2020, shortly before the second, seven-month-long lockdown was imposed, Nawenstein sat next to the Plexiglas panes and was angry about how the Corona measures robbed him of any chance of getting on a green branch. Summer 2020 went well. But it had been too short to pay off the pandemic debt. At the end of November 2020, Nawenstein had so little money in his account that he could no longer afford the packaging material for the to-go dishes. In January 2021 - after a month and a half in lockdown - he could no longer pay the rent for his restaurant and the electricity. "We are currently living on the child benefit that we get," said the father of two at the time.

Then came May and the reopening.

It exceeded even Nawenstein's wildest hopes.

For half a year so many people came to “La Cevi” to try the elaborately prepared Peruvian dishes than ever since it opened in 2016. On the weekends, the reservation book was not only full - 20 or 30 people often called to be put on a waiting list.

They longed for a little vacation feeling in their hometown, says Nawenstein.

The 2 G Plus scheme is more complicated than a lockdown

In doing so, they helped the restaurateur, who had been afraid for months before going to the mailbox, to finally put up a cushion again. “Now I am in the towel,” says Nawenstein. The fact that a table was free for the first time last weekend cannot yet shake his confidence. "I'm not even afraid of a month's lockdown anymore."

In fact, a possible lockdown is not the scenario that is causing restaurateurs most of all right now. It would be particularly bitter in the really strong Christmas business, no question. In addition, an ordered closure would exacerbate the shortage of staff in the industry again - from tense back to extremely tense. But a large number of restaurateurs came out of the summer relatively well. The state bridging aid III Plus as well as the short-time working allowance would at least be safe for them in the event of an ordered closure.

It is much more complicated with a 2-G-plus regulation, i.e. the requirement that vaccinated and convalescent people can only be allowed into restaurants and cafés with a daily test.

This regulation already applies in individual federal states, for example in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

If the hospitalization rate continues to stagnate or rise, it could soon also take hold in countries such as Lower Saxony.

"A quasi-lockdown"

Industry associations in the catering industry agree on the 2-G-plus rule.

"This is like a quasi-lockdown, as only a few vaccinated and convalescent people bother to take a test before going to a restaurant," says Kerstin Rapp-Schwan, head of the Leaders Club Germany.

The hospitality industry association DEHOGA and the initiative host group formulate it in a similar way.

Sales would then drop so much that many restaurateurs would find themselves in dire straits again.

At the same time, however, they could not close independently in order to reduce the fixed costs as much as possible, because a condition for the bridging aid III Plus would automatically be removed.