Business bustling for CNY but restaurants face manpower woes

Chelsea Ong

Published Tue, Jan 17, 2023 · 05:50 AM

WITH this being Singapore’s first Chinese New Year (CNY) since Covid-19 group size limits were lifted, restaurants are seeing a return of large groups for celebratory meals – and finding it harder to get enough manpower, as workers themselves are in a festive mood.

Demand for dine-in reunion dinners has recovered to or even surpassed pre-Covid levels, restaurants told The Business Times. Some restaurant groups – such as Tung Lok, Peach Garden and Min Jiang – had most if not all of their reunion dinner slots filled by the end of 2022.

This is the first time that all of Peach Garden’s restaurants were fully booked one month before the eve of CNY on Jan 21, general manager Darren Yew said.

To meet the surge in demand, Peach Garden took two new measures: An early reunion promotion for dinners before the eve; and offering festive dishes until the end of February – an extra 23 days after the traditional 15 days of celeb…