Local Focus: Level 3 opening 'our busiest day ever'

Life at level 3 is already a lot busier than life at level 4, and it couldn't come soon enough for small, owner-operated businesses able to operate safely, like Grill & Green in Pāpāmoa East.

"[Lockdown] made me quite worried because the restaurant would be closed for one month," Grill & Green manager, Hulya Kar said.

"That means no income. Okay, but the landlord still expects rent and the IRD will still expect us to pay taxes, so it made me a bit worried."

Getting used to the new level 3 reality has been a steep learning curve.

"First day, there was a little bit of confusion because you are a bit scared to do things wrong because there are certain rules and regulations for the health and safety issues for Covid-19," she said.

"To me it was average. It wasn't really crowded or busy. Maybe that's our mistake… maybe we didn't pay much attention to advertising. There is a restaurant beside us and they were quite busy."

Kar is referring to the next door curry house, Great Spice, which had its busiest day since opening in 2018.

"It was too busy for us and quite hard to manage," Great Spice manager, Ajit Chaudhary said.

"There were lots of people sitting outside waiting for takeaways."

Despite the teething problems, supporting local businesses is now more important than ever.

"We can survive," Chaudhary said.

"We are a small business and need some money to go through and everything, so level 3 is letting us open the restaurant for takeaways and everything. Before, we weren't doing many deliveries but we opened yesterday and had plenty of deliveries. In level 2 we're allowed to open… but it's still really risky."

Local Pāpāmoa residents are thrilled to see the "open" signs again.

"These businesses around here are fairly new and were just getting established, building up a good client base, and 'bang' it all came to a stop," Jim Thorpe said.

"Now they've got to start all over and attract their customers back. It must be difficult for them but good to see them back and open."

It's a different story for the local boutique cinema though, which must remain closed, so it has different priorities.

"In the last five weeks, number one obviously looking after our staff and we've put them on the subsidy which is fantastic," owner Karen Focus said.

"Luckily, we have managed to pay our small suppliers and things like that. We've got a few things in place with the banks and now it's just a waiting game on when we can open again and what that's actually going to look like."

And when cinemas do eventually reopen, there'll be another issue to face - what to screen.

"There's nothing really much to open with. A lot of the tent pole movies have been moved and a lot of the little movies have been put straight into streaming, like Onward which was going to be one of the biggest movies for the school holidays, that went straight into Disney."

They hope to be able to open their doors at level 2, but even then, the future is still unknown.

"The idea is to do a soft open really and see what the feeling is… and whether people will come," Focus said.

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