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ARCHIVED - Get in there quick: Bookings for Christmas meals at Cartagena restaurants filling up quickly
Some bars and restaurants in Cartagena are already fully booked for Christmas lunches and dinners
Anyone looking to enjoy a lunch or dinner with friends, family or colleagues at one of Cartagena’s bars or restaurants this festive period would be well advised to book now, as the reservation books are already beginning to fill up.
Many restaurants say the hard times they suffered during the peak of the pandemic is ancient history (although Covid is still around and among us, don’t forget), and that they are getting similar numbers of Christmas diners as they did in 2019, pre-pandemic.
Particularly significant are December 17 and 23, which are the two most popular days for Christmas meals, with most people preferring dinner rather than lunch, although this trend is beginning to balance out more and more each year as many gatherings of work colleagues prefer to bring their traditional Christmas parties forward to midday and continue drinking and dancing into the evening.
“We are expecting an outstanding Christmas campaign, as if it were high season,” said Juan José López, president of Hostecar, the Employers’ Association of the Hotel and Catering Trade in Cartagena and the surrounding area, which expects most catering establishments to reinforce their staff by around 20% for the Christmas and New Year rush.
López did stress, however, that food prices on menus have gone up by between 10% and 15% due to the rising cost of living, but the hike is less than the increase in the cost of energy, gas and raw materials for the businesses.
“In general, we have a rise that is over 30% and yet prices have not shot up to that level. This means that businessmen are subtracting that difference from their profits and the result on their balance sheet at the end of Christmas will be much lower,” he said.
The bars and restaurants will also be forced to pay an extra charge if they want to set up chairs and tables outside on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, even though they already pay an annual fee to use these selfsame spaces every other day of the year.
Image: Archive
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