We can’t miss the sign, it’s been more than a meter high at the entrance of the restaurant, Pasela Resorts. What are the safety instructions in the face of the Covid-19 : port of the mask to the table, outlet temperature required, disinfection of the hands. It also explains the protocol followed by the staff. In this complex of restaurants and entertainment in the upscale district of Ginza in Tokyo, the client is forced to present their face in front of a tablet which illuminates and captures his face, checks the port of the mask and takes the temperature. “Beyond 37.5 degrees, we are refused entry. The mean body temperature of the Japanese spins around 36.7 “, explains the Point Masaya Kiyohara, patron of Pasela Resorts where the restaurants are counted by hundreds.

Here, we put the karaoke in the background, but was reopened to the private lounges for having a drink or dinner. “The inhabitants of Tokyo or the area does not invite not at home and when they dine with friends at a restaurant they appreciate a private space,” says the manager. These small dining rooms are very common. Not easy, however, to return to the customer when the authorities explain that the places where the contagion is stronger correspond nearly to the description of the restaurants : it is ended, we are many, we remove the mask, we talk a lot. “We’ve installed air purifiers in all the private rooms (sometimes without window),” says Mr. Kiyohara.

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Nothing has really changed

The boui-boui three-covered countertop to large tables, 3-star, passing by the taverns (izakaya) or the real complex gastronomic, approximately 160,000 restaurants in Tokyo do not follow all the same rules. The municipality has, admittedly, written a ” guide to good practices “, but to implement them is the good will of everyone. In the dining area of a department store, where there are long narrow tables at which several couples or groups may take place vis-à-screws, one placed small panels of Plexiglas to separate clients. The effectiveness does not appear guaranteed, but it’s reassuring nonetheless. Other institutions have the chance to be originally designed to accommodate single people (” ohitori-sama “), a type of customer’s delight. He or she wants is usually the peace ; in the face of his plate into a sort of cabin closed on three sides, sometimes with a “hole-pass flat” in front of it. This configuration nothing disturbing before the coronavirus now appears almost ideal. Finally, some have posted a sort of certificate of good conduct, health antiviral on their door, document the veracity of which is not assured.

to take the temperature at the entrance of a restaurant © Karyn Nishimura-PoupéeReste that many sites have not greatly changed their habits. The small neighborhood restaurants, which sometimes remained open with reduced hours during the nearly two-month state of emergency, simply install a bottle of liquid aqueous-alcoholic at the entrance and wear masks to staff. The large chains, they have defined a more strict protocol which also serves as an argument of the communication back from the customer so that the turnover of the restoration has plummeted from 40% in April. Then, between the two, there are establishments of average size who are trying to find the right compromise. “It is hard for us to know how we are going to reconfigure our room, but we can’t keep the same number of places,” said Takashi Imanari, patron of the Relais Sakura, a restaurant, a thirty cutlery, western-style, in a residential area. It has opted in the meantime for the ” take-away “.

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