Restaurants and the hospitality sector face a bleak future after a long-established bar announced it was to shut up shop because of the coronavirus crisis, owners warned yesterday.

Philip Barnett, of the Island Restaurant Group, said: “Until we’re able to reopen our dining rooms, it could very well be that every restaurant in Bermuda closes.”

Mr Barnett, whose businesses include the Pickled Onion, Hog Penny and Brew, all in Hamilton, said no operator could survive several months of closure, even with the Government’s unemployment benefits to laid-off staff.

Mr Barnett was speaking after Jay Correia, the owner of the Swizzle South Shore in Warwick, said yesterday the bar and restaurant would not reopen after the Covid-19 pandemic had passed because of the weight of debt caused by the enforced shutdown.

Mr Correia added the “crippling” clampdown and the “subsequent contraction of the local economy for many months to come”, left him no choice but to cut his losses.

He said that staying open would “only bring mounting debt month after month that the restaurant could not bear”.

Mr Barnett said Mr Correia’s views were shared across the industry, which had predicted “dire” prospects as a result of the pandemic restrictions.

He added restaurants “blindsided” by the crisis faced “a perfect storm”.

Mr Barnett highlighted “incredibly high overheads and fixed costs, with no ability to generate revenue coming off what is always a slow winter”.

He said permission for takeout and kerbside pick-ups had bought most restaurants at most a matter of weeks.

Mr Barnett added the Swizzle South Shore closure was “heartbreaking”.

He warned: “We’re all next. That’s what we feel. People are literally losing their ability to survive.”

Mr Barnett said that a collapse of the restaurant industry would have a major knock-on effect across the economy from “fishermen to farmers, liquor suppliers and window cleaners”.

Chris Garland, general manager of Flanagan’s Irish Bar and Restaurant on Front Street, backed Mr Barnett.

Mr Garland said: “The spin-off, domino effect from restaurants into the service industry is endless.

“Bars probably keep more plumbers in business than anyone else. There’s Cablevision, internet, so many services we use.

“Just think about the trickle-down effect from Jay’s business closing.

“This is talked about all over the world — the value of the restaurant business. We are one of the largest employers as an industry.”

Mr Garland praised the Government’s unemployment benefits scheme and proposed legislation to allow one-time withdrawals from private pensions.

However, he added: “I still need help salvaging my business to enable me to continue employing people.

“If we go down, unfortunately, many families will probably go down with us.”

Mr Garland, like Mr Barnett, a former head of the Chamber of Commerce’s restaurant division, said “open dialogue” was needed for the public to understand “what restaurateurs are going through”.

He explained: “We are an industry that makes between 2 and 5 per cent return on investment.

“This is just flooring people and the public need to know how quickly this can add up to a steamroller of 5,000 people on financial assistance in just a couple of months.

“It’s going to get dire. More and more people are talking that way now.”

Mr Garland said “certain places” would survive because their products, brand and reputation would help carry them through the losses.

He added most owners in the sector were “going ahead with business in whatever new model is required with the right safety precautions in place”. Mr Garland said: “But the mood is survival. We’re working very hard for our employees to have jobs.

The only way we can do that is cutting as many fixed costs as we can, working with vendors and landlords and potentially payroll cuts.”

He added his business could not continue “like this for ever”.

Mr Garland said: “Eventually, we have to go back to the way we lived. As soon as a vaccine comes, we want to get life back again.”

He added: “It’s about survival until an accepted way of life returns. The present model doesn’t work for restaurants, especially on any prime Front Street real estate.”

Belcario Thomas, a co-chairman of the East End division of the Chamber of Commerce, said businesses would have to innovate to stay afloat.

Mr Thomas added: “Necessity breeds innovation. The sector will have to be open minded and seek to be innovative, to provide as much value as possible.”

He said there was a “waiting list of superyachts and yachts waiting to come in and spend”.

Mr Thomas predicted: “That industry for tourism will be the first to reopen.”

He said the island should move fast to open the St George’s marina to catch yacht business that would “come to the dock and pick up everything they need” and that the crisis was “a great opportunity to get things flowing better”.

Mr Thomas said that “everything across hospitality should get a kind of special development order”, similar to the stimulus packages for major capital developments.

He added: “This is an opportunity to look at outdated laws and policies.

“We can add more experiences. We can have cannabis businesses.

“We could have hostels — we don’t have any because of legislation, but we could change that and become more competitive when we open up.”

Mr Thomas said: “Let’s get out of our own way. We will have no other choice.”