Rising Omicron infection rates have forced Belfast’s Ormeau Road Bengal Brasserie to re-think how it will bring some festive cheer to families in need on Christmas Day.
The restaurant says it has had to cancel the planned Christmas Day lunch which was free to anyone who called in. Instead, it will deliver meals to the south Belfast Simon Community.
Restaurant owner, Luthfur Ahmed said the decision was a hard one to make but he had to put safety and wellbeing issues above all else.
Mr Ahmed said:
This decision is made with a heavy heart. For many years, we opened our doors for Christmas Day lunches for people less fortunate than ourselves who were perhaps spending Christmas alone. It is a great sadness that we have now decided not to go ahead with this event
Last year, the pandemic put paid to our Christmas Day plans but the year before, we did more than 130 lunches, and we were delighted to have been able to lend a helping hand and bring a smile to people’s faces.
Rising Omicron rates and the requirement to show Covid Certificates have made it impossible to proceed. Not everyone has the required proof and that would create enormous difficulty for us to ‘police’ at the front door.
We will do a limited number of lunches which will be supplied to the Simon Community. It’ll be a big takeaway with a range of selected dishes from our Bangladeshi main courses to choose from.
We’re really sorry to have to take this course but under the circumstances, we had no other option left open to us.
Ciarán Corr, Communications Manager at Simon Community NI commented:
Thank you to Luthfur and his staff for choosing our charity as the lucky recipients of their Christmas lunch giveaway. Our team at the Foyer are always looking for new and different ways to get young people staying at the project to socialise with one another and food is always a popular choice. The donation of a Bengal Brasserie bumper takeaway will go a long way in providing some festive cheer to our clients this Christmas.
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