After months of being forced to remain closed due to Covid, Belgian restaurant chain Lunch Garden prepares to reopen on 9 June. Customers can expect to encounter unchanged prices, the classics on the menu, and an expanded vegetarian range.
Two thirds of turnover gone
Last year, the chain lost two thirds of its income, while recurring costs (such as an annual ten million euros in rent) did not diminish, CEO Ann Biebuyck told newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. Regardless, none of its 75 restaurants will have to close post-corona: Biebuyck says that 2019 has been a very good year and 2020 started well too, so her chain was able to withstand the biggest hits. Through a programme of early retirement and voluntary leave, the number of redundancies was cut from 138 to 25.
The chain, which prides itself on the fact that a million Belgians have a loyalty card, will reopen featuring all of its classics on the menu – except for mussels in the ‘all you can eat’ formula, which was deemed too labour intensive in the beginning. New at Lunch Garden will be a breakfast box to go, costing five euros, and an expanded vegetarian range. With the latter (including vegetarian lasagne, quorn and tabbouleh with forgotten vegetables), the chain hopes to attract a younger target audience. Still, prices will remain the same: “Our objective remains to give an average family with two children a cornucopia to eat for at most 50 euros”, Biebuyck concludes.
