Just prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus, the biggest concern of many people in Prague was the way the crowds of tourists seemed to be choking its streets. Two months after they disappeared, restaurants in the center are realizing they’ll have to slash their prices if they want any business from the only clientele they have left: Czechs. Echo24.cz spoke with numerous restaurant owners who said the lack of foreign tourists meant they were opening later and closing earlier, lowering prices and adjusting to local customers. “The current situation has hurt us a lot,” said one. “We’re missing the tourists terribly.” Palliardi Café’s operations director Jakub Fujáček told the news server that he shortened opening hours by a third, cut prices and laid off staff because turnover was down 75 percent. The famous U Tří Zlatých hvězd restaurant has cut prices but its opening hours are unchanged. The Czech government has earmarked CZK 150m in loans for businesses hit by the pandemic, while Českomoravská záruční will be able to lend CZK 500bn in loans to an estimated 150,000 businesses.
