With all of us having been relegated to our homes, it has been a tough time for businesses given cash flow has dried up over the past month or so, and they are all trying to make payroll for their employees, and stay afloat. One of the businesses hit hard has been the restaurant business. While some restaurants have kept open as delivery kitchens, many restaurants have shut down even before the announcement of a lockdown came into force. I am not sure how many were able to pay to their staff beforehand, now, at the end of the month, they are all due to pay salaries.

I’ve been trying to support as many businesses as we can, and one place I did not crack yet was the restaurants and the holes in the wall I love. For instance, the Guptaji across my home, from where I used to eat chaat. He is not there anymore. Luckily sometime back, an overzealous salesman activated him on UPI and me being the digital payment nut, had paid him with UPI because I had forgotten my wallet home one day. I pulled up his UPI history from my payment app and sent him some money. I sure do hope he remembers the way to make chaat for me when we see him again.

India, unfortunately, did not go the American way where every small business would make their gift cards and sell them. Another way to support restaurants is to order food from there, even if you are not consuming outside food at the moment. I have to admit if there were a way to go to the restaurant directly and give them the money just like that or as credit, I would have done that as well.

Fortunately, there have been two solutions which were recently launched, which are going to help restaurants generate some cashflow. The first one is from EazyDiner. You can buy vouchers across many cities, and an INR 1,000 voucher is being sold for INR 750 only. Additionally, you get 250 EazyDiner points for every voucher sold.

Here are the terms and conditions attached to these vouchers. Apart from the validity through December 2020, the other essential T&Cs are that you can only use two vouchers in one go, and any other offers from the restaurant will also be valid with these vouchers.

• All prepaid deals are non-refundable and cannot be cancelled.
• The voucher can be used at the selected restaurant until 30th December 2020
• Prior table reservation at your selected restaurant via EazyDiner is necessary for use of the voucher.
• The voucher is cash equivalent and can be used even after availing the EazyDiner deal the customer has booked.
• More than two vouchers cannot be used against the payment of one bill at the restaurant.
• The voucher is one-time use only and in case the bill value is lower than the voucher denomination, the balance amount cannot be refunded or used later.
• The voucher cannot be redeemed for cash.
• Customers will have to present the voucher at the restaurant before dining.

For instance, I picked up some vouchers for some restaurants on my list across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Some of these would be handy for date night when things limp back to normalcy.

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The other entity with a similar proposition is DineOut India. I am going to be buying some vouchers from here too since they have some other restaurants on their list which I like. In the case of DineOut, you can use the vouchers for 6 months from the date of purchase. With DineOut, you don’t have to make a booking with Dineout to be able to redeem these vouchers.

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Bottomline

If you enjoy dining out, you should do your bit to ensure that the industry survives these times of crisis. For one, they are only asking for a loan of sorts and offering better value for better times.

Do share how are you helping your local businesses survive the CoVid-19 outbreak?