Select restaurants will be handing out €15 vouchers to customers who spend their government vouchers there, as part of a new scheme that launches on Thursday.
The new voucher scheme will allow customers to use their red €15 voucher at restaurants forming part of the scheme, and receive another €15 voucher in exchange, to be used specifically at that establishment.
Customers will be offered the equivalent number of vouchers that they have used at that restaurant.
The new voucher scheme was launched by the Association of Catering Establishments, a sectoral lobby group. Forty of the association s 400 members have pushed the incentive, which will be open to all ACE members.
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Relief has washed over restaurant owners with a “very good vibe” felt across the sector, as diners flock to eat out after weeks of having to make do with takeaway food and home deliveries.
Restaurants reopened last Monday, two months after the country went into shutdown amid the worst wave of COVID-19 infections. The move is the first in a series of steps in the country’s reopening plan for the catering and accommodation industry.
Association of Catering Establishments (ACE) spokesperson Matthew Pace said there was “no comparison” to the earlier reopening of the sector after the 2020 closure, describing the feeling among restaurants right now as a “very good vibe”.
Updated 3.30pm with MHRA reaction
Restaurateurs are hopeful that today’s reopening will see diners rushing to eat out, even if establishments have to be shut by 5pm, according to the Association of Catering Establishments (ACE).
Noting that “people are desperate to go out”, ACE spokesperson and restaurateur Matthew Pace insisted that the planned distribution of vouchers is a “much-needed cash flow injection”.
Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Sunday the vouchers would start being issued on June 7.
The roll-out of similar vouchers last year spanned weeks and delays had concerned business owners who were eager to get the sector going again.