Surprisingly, at lunch time, almost all of the seats are occupied at this newly opened Sichuan restaurant named South Beauty. This is a really rare sight at the moment. Most of the restaurants in Beijing have closed down because business has been so bad.

The boss of this restaurant says it's not an easy task to make a customer feel safe enough to eat out at the moment. He says they have paid a lot of attention to detail and put extraordinary effort in, to keep the doors of their nine restaurants open in the city.

Zhang Lan, chairman of Beijing South Beauty Restaurant Co.,Ltd., said, "For this newly opened restaurant, it cost us a lot for a specially designed ventilating and air conditioning system. We require all staff in our restaurant to have a temperature test twice a day, and change their masks, gloves and clothes twice a day. There is much more work to do than usual to create a clean and comfortable environment."

Waiters and waitresses all wear masks and gloves £­ and serve the people with as few words as possible. Between serving the dishes they are hard at work with the constant job of sterilizing and cleaning. The rules in the kitchen are extremely strict. All utensils must go through four processes of sterilization before they are allowed to be used and chefs use disposal gloves for the preparation of each dish.

The chief chef says not only are their jobs now undertaken with more delicacy and care, their general way of life has also changed to avoid any potential danger. "Our life is now only about travelling between the restaurant and our dorm, without going to other places. The chefs are not allowed to take public transportation. We only walk or ride a bicycle. And we avoid meeting friends, relatives and strangers to prevent any risks."

Nowadays, people are more careful about their choice of restaurants, and many restaurants are losing their customers. Only those with a high standard of cleanliness, and a good reputation for excellent food and service are surviving this cold spell in the catering industry.

Fast food restaurants are among those who are surviving this bad time, because they have standard food processing and packaging systems. Delivery service is a major business at the moment, and is making up some of the revenue loss. The 24£­hour Chinese fast food chain Yonghe is one example.

He Jun, regional manager of Beijing Yonghe Restaurant Co.,Ltd., said, "Although the number of people eating at our outlets decreased, our business is not greatly affected. Our home delivery service has increased by over 30 percent and home delivery accounts for more than half of our business."

According to the latest statistics from the Beijing Chamber of Commerce, catering industry revenue has dropped by 70 percent since the beginning of May. The Chamber of Commerce says that the Beijing municipal government plans to adopt tax£­cut measures in the near future to alleviate some of the hurt from SARS.

(People's Daily May 15, 2003)