Omicron spread: Uber-exclusive clubs turn to home deliveries, takeaways

Members had started returning in good numbers before Omicron spoilt the scene

The grand white buildings of Kolkata’s colonial-era clubs have fallen quiet again. The virulent Omicron that has swept through the city, which is recording a weekly positivity rate of over 47 per cent, is keeping patrons away. Turnout is down to a trickle and home delivery right now seems to be the only survival strategy.

In other parts of the country, too, these uber-exclusive clubs — where membership waiting can sometimes run into decades and requires a robust personal profile and equally robust recommendations — are struggling to keep things running.

Take the example of Madras Gymkhana Club in Chennai. In September last year, when Sanjay Shroff took charge as president of the 135-year-old club, it was going through one of the most difficult periods in terms of finances. Having added less than 10 new members since the pandemic started, it had taken a revenue hit of 30-40 per cent. Its restaurant revenue, too, had plunged to 70-80 per cent of pre-pandemic days.

So, the club tied up with on-demand delivery start-up Dunzo to deliver meals to its 4,000-odd members. Now, it gets on an average 10-15 per cent of food orders through this online mode. “With this move a success, we are planning to also start a satellite catering facility at our 80-acre golf course in Guindy to service the people around that area,” Shroff says, adding, “Until the third wave, we were on the recovery track. Now, again operations are affected.” To tide over the current crisis, he adds, the club is planning to set up space for recreation facilities and meetings for small groups, “which is what people now prefer”.

At Kolkata’s Tollygunge Club — “Tolly” to most — Chief Executive and Managing Member Anil R Muk­erji says member visits are down by over 50 per cent, just when “things had started moving towards normalcy”.

For closed spaces — restaurants and bars — there are hardly any takers, he adds. “We are not opening all the restaurants every day. It’s pointless because nobody is coming.” So, its two restaurants are opened in a staggered manner during the week, as are its three bars.

“Tolly, thankfully, has a lot of open-air space,” says Mukerji, and people are preferring to sit there.

At the Bengal Club, too, it’s the lawns that are seeing some patrons. But compared to December, hardly anyone is turning up now, says Ambarish Dasgupta, club president. All the restaurants and bars are operational, though.

Calcutta Club, which has started open-air dining on the main lawns, is keeping only the Passage Bar operational for now. The other bars — the Crystal Room and the Men’s Bar — are temporarily closed.

But even if patrons are giving the clubs a go-by, they need not miss the food. The pandemic has prompted most clubs to start home delivery services.

At Bengal Club, both takeaway and delivery are focus areas. “Covid was one of the reasons to precipitate our app for home delivery. But then it went into inactivity because people were so willing to come out. Now, with Omicron, it’s got reactivated,” says Mukerji of Tolly Club.

“We have been doing home delivery from Day 1 and it’s one of the peak points of sale for the club,” adds Somnath Mukherjee, CEO, Calcutta Club.

Over in Chennai, the Cosmop­olitan Club was closed for almost 10 months during the pandemic. Founded in 1873, this is one of the largest clubs in South India with 5,500 regular members and 1,600 non-resident members. With operations shut, the club faced the difficult task of paying salaries to its staff of over 100 from its reserves. Adding to the revenue dip, it had to pay for other facilities, too, like the annual bar licence fee of Rs 23 lakh. Towards the end of last year, however, things had started looking up and the club had almost touched 80 per cent of its pre-pandemic revenue.

"Just before the third wave, we were doing very good business. Our health club, tennis court, restaurants, lawn service, everything was full,” says K Sundareswaran, president, Cosmopolitan Club. “We are not doing home deliveries since we want people to come here. We do not want home-delivery personnel to crowd the premises."

The Madras Club, meanwhile, is doing fine financially, says a source. The club, which was set up in 1832, has 600-odd superrich from the city as its members and it has a lean staff strength. 

Over at Bombay Gymkhana, operations have been scaled down to adhere to the government’s directive to close by 10 pm; only fully vaccinated guests are being allowed entry; and capacity utilisation has been limited to 50 per cent, says its CEO Saurabh Ratan. Takeaway services for members are on, he adds.

Exclusivity, it turns out, is a heavy burden to bear. Members of the 108-year-old Delhi Gymkhana Club, situated in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi, have largely stayed away for the past two years. “Our revenues have suffered indeed and while we tried to protect jobs, some contractual labour had to be laid off. With no people visiting, they had nothing to do,” says administrator Om Pathak.

As members had started to trickle back in after the second wave subsided, the club was moving towards normal functioning until the new variant played spoilsport. “The pandemic has been tough for the [Delhi] Gymkhana Club, like for most of the hospitality sector. Sales have been down and we get only nominal home-delivery orders,” adds Pathak.

However, as Delhi seems to be approaching its Covid peak, Pathak is hopeful that members will soon be back on the lawns to attend the Davis Cup play-off in March.