The Bar, at the Waterfront, closed at the beginning of the pandemic and has announced it is to remain shut.
Meanwhile, Vittoria, at Liberty Wharf, which has converted its nightclub area into a restaurant, says it does not have enough workers to staff its new late-night dinner-dancing.
Tanguy’s, on Mulcaster Street, has also moved away from nightclub operations. However, the ban on stand-up drinking has been a blessing for the business which, according to owner Chris Tanguy, has experienced one of its most successful periods since it opened.
The Island has now moved into stage seven of the government’s Covid-19 reconnection roadmap which allows the full reopening of nightclubs, stand-up drinking and large-scale events.
Martin Sayers, the owner of Vittoria and Quayside restaurants, said he had already had to scale back capacity by over 30%.
He said: ‘At the moment it is difficult to employ anybody. There is such a staff shortage and wages have gone up considerably.
‘Unfortunately, we have got a nightclub and we have had to scale back. We were going to do new sophisticated dinner-dancing on Fridays and Saturdays but we cannot expect the staff we have got to work lunchtime, dinner and then late at night.
‘It is like a perfect, or horrific, storm of Brexit, lots of people leaving the industry and going back to Europe, the price of accommodation and having to offer reduced service for the past year and a half.’
Mr Sayers criticised a recent government scheme aimed at easing the crisis which led to registered and licensed workers being able to have second part-time jobs. He claimed those eligible could take up a second job in any sector and the idea had not helped the hospitality industry at all.
He urged the government to do more and suggested pulling Jersey out of the Common Travel Area so that the Island no longer had to align its immigration policies with the UK, could avoid post-Brexit bureaucracy and could attract more foreign workers into the Island.
A spokesperson for the Liberation Group, which owns The Bar, said: ‘We have no immediate plans to operate the site mainly due to staff shortages.’
Meanwhile, Mr Tanguy said that seated service had been so successful for the venue that it would continue beyond the easing of restrictions.
‘We put extra tables in where the dancefloor used to be and have offered a seated service for some time now and it has proven to be really successful,’ he said. ‘The past couple of months has actually been one of the most successful periods we have had as a business since we first opened.’
He added: ‘Instead of operating as a nightclub we are styling it as a late-night lounge bar, which I think is in keeping with the current trends in hospitality, and I have no intention to return the venue to a nightclub.
‘As a business we are heading into the unknown. Although the seated service has been really successful until now, other venues and nightclubs will return to normal operation and we don’t know if this will have an impact on us. I cannot say that we will never return to a nightclub, because everything may open and our seated service might take a hit. In which case I may be forced to return to our pre-Covid operation, you just don’t know at the moment.’
