But as Covid-19 restrictions on dining-in are lifted in the state today, those running the 115-year-old restaurant will exercise caution.

They expect a large crowd, especially those eager to release their pent-up frustration of not partaking in their kapitan chicken and mutton mysore fresh from the kitchen.

The restaurant’s director Muhammad Riyaaz Syed Ibrahim says customers’ expectations would be tempered: only 95 people will be allowed to dine at one of their two shops just three doors apart which in pre-pandemic days would have seated 195 diners.

“We are going to encourage takeaways more than dine-ins, in view of the high number of Covid-19 cases,” he said. A group of army veterans had booked 12 seats in advance for the weekend, he told FMT.

Those coming in showing their full vaccination certificates will be given a coloured sticker so as to notify servers, not to confuse them with those who had come to get takeaways.

Riyaaz said business had dropped by 40% after the no dine-in rule was implemented, while the business survived on food delivery services to stay afloat.

However, G Hotel at Gurney Drive, whose eateries which were a hit when the MCO began last year, has decided to keep the Taste Cafe and other restaurants closed due to “contradicting SOPs”.

The hotel’s communications officer Christina Tan said this stems from a requirement by the authorities that all entering the hotel must be vaccinated, including guests who stay in the hotel.

She said since there are long-term guests and frontliners staying in the hotel with no vaccination requirement, they have decided not to take chances with a possible spread of the virus at the hotel.

“We already have in-house guests and they were not subjected to a vaccine-first policy. Are we supposed to kick those without vaccination out? This has yet to be answered.

“Hence, we are not taking chances of allowing dine-in when this issue is not cleared up,” she said.

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