ROADSIDE food stall owners are still struggling to make a comeback in pandemic, despite the fact that outdoor dining is permitted and life is more or less back to normal though governed by standard operating procedures.

While restaurants are seeing a surge in dine-in customers, roadside stalls are making only 70% of what they used to make before Covid-19.

Stall owner Hani, as she wanted to be known, said there are fewer customers.

“I would say, we are probably making about 70% of our pre-Covid sales.”

The 38-year-old’s Restoran Lela Selera Pantai Timur in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, is open from 7.30am to 10pm daily.

Hani said before the virus, she would see a steady flow of patrons after 9pm as people liked eating out late.

“Now, not even a single customer comes after 9pm,” she added.

Though Hani works with food delivery platforms, like FoodPanda, there have been few online orders.

Char koay teow hawker Ting, as he wanted to be known, said business is still slow despite his stall being surrounded by offices and residential areas in Old Klang Road.

Though there has been improvement as people can move more freely now, business is nothing like pre-Covid times.

“I used to serve about 120 to 130 customers a day, but now I serve only about 70 to 80 daily,” said Ting.

“This is an almost 30% drop in daily customers. I wonder if things will ever get back to normal; the real normal, normal.”

The 52-year-old sole breadwinner has been hawking for the past five years.

Sundaram, who runs Sundaram Food Corner in Kuala Lumpur, is relying on office workers – who have been working from home in the past two years – to keep his business afloat.

“During the lockdowns, we lost our office customers,” said the food stall operator, whose stand is open around the clock.

“There were delivery orders during that period, but that could not measure up to the business from dine-in patrons and office customers.

“Things are getting back to normal now, but street hawkers will need time to recover.”

Sundaram said Omicron will also slow down recovery, as people may be reluctant to buy outdoor food.

Malaysia has reported 62 Omicron cases so far, of which 61 are imported. The single local case – detected in Sarawak – involves a patient with no recent travel history.

The country has vaccinated 78% of its total population. – December 30, 2021.