Popular Sheffield bar closes temporarily as it blames curfew for 40 per cent drop in takings

Piña, on Harvest Lane, in Kelham Island, announced yesterday, Monday, October 5, that it was closing until Thursday as a direct result of the restrictions imposed on pubs restaurants.

The Mexican bar and restaurant backed growing calls from within the hospitality industry to ‘cancel the curfew’, which it claims is ‘achieving precisely nothing’.

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“We’ve made so many adaptations and changes to comply with Covid regulations, invested hugely to ensure we’re providing a safe environment (as has everyone!) only to be hit with another incredibly damaging policy,” it wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.

“Hospitality, the third largest employer in the country, according to the governments own data, accounts for only 4 per cent of new infections. Go figure.

“Every month they move the goal posts. I’m sure I speak for most people in hospitality when I say that I have absolutely no idea what the direction of travel is. The curfew is achieving precisely nothing but looks like it’s here to stay unless we make some noise!

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"Every bar or restaurant affected by this, write to your local MP and let’s get this issue heard! If the curfew is affecting you, speak out, talk with your customers and post on your social media.

“We’re going to spend this week doing what we can to plan for the next few months. Reassess what’s possible and how we should operate under new conditions

“Think new food offers, Saturday lunch-time menus, midweek food offerings and cocktail happy hours. Maybe?”

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Piña added that it would be open again this Friday and Saturday, and it thanked customers for their support.

Pubs and restaurants across England were ordered to close by 10pm from September 24, following a rise in Covid-19 cases, with Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove saying at the time that the measure had been shown to have a ‘beneficial effect’ on reducing the spread of the virus in those areas where it had been tried previously.

Piña is not the only venue in Sheffield to criticise the measure, with one landlord last month blasting it as ‘pointless’ and hugely damaging for the industry.

The Star has contacted the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.