A RESTAURANT has lost almost half of its Christmas bookings following the Prime Minister’s announcement of ‘Plan B’ restrictions to combat the Omicron variant.

The owner of Italian Il Pescatore in Queen’s Road, Southend, has been fielding calls for cancellations every day since the announcement – despite official Government advice allowing for gatherings in hospitality venues.

Daniel Burzotta, whose family have run the restaurant for 30 years, said: “We’ve had loads of cancellations. We’re probably down about 50 per cent from where we were a week ago.

“In the middle of November we were pretty much fully booked most nights leading in to Christmas and in the last few days I’ve had parties of 15, 20 and such cancel. Every day I lose two or three big groups.”

He added: “It all started to happen after the Prime Minister’s announcement last week."

On the evening of Wednesday, November 8, Boris Johnson announced the move to ‘Plan B’ with face masks made compulsory in most public indoor venues and NHS Covid Passes required to access large venues and events.

“Following the announcement and everything else being reported in the media, I think people are too scared to come in,” Daniel, 46, continued.

“We thought we were going to have a really good Christmas this year but it’s just a disaster at the moment. After that announcement things have just gone pear shaped.”

Measures have been put in place to keep customers safe at Il Pescatore.

“We do our best to keep people safe here. We still have large spaces between tables with regular cleaning and staff are testing on a daily basis. There’s not really a lot more we can do,” Daniel said.

Last week a spokesperson for the PM confirmed the Government did not believe people or businesses needed to cancel their Christmas parties in hospitality venues.

The spokesman earlier said it was to individual businesses to decide whether Christmas parties should go ahead.

They said: said: “We do not think there is a need to cancel people coming together in hospitality venues.”