The restaurant had been running for 22 years, but wasn’t able to replace kitchen staff that had left during the Coronavirus pandemic
Translated by Thomas Ansell
The Coronavirus pandemic and its lockdowns hit the hotel, restaurant, and catering industry (horeca) hard, and now that the Dutch economy is re-opening, business owners are finding a new issue: a lack of staff. The shortage is so bad that one restaurant in Harlingen has had to shut after 22 years.
As reported by the Omrop Fryslân, the restaurants’ highly-regarded chefs left the business during the Coronavirus pandemic (for varying reasons), and have moved on to work elsewhere. The owners of the restaurant, Jaap and Annemieke Zijlstra, searched for replacement chefs for months- but to no avail.
“It’s a really sour experience, I wanted to remain open, and we’re in the middle of the high season now, too”, says Zijlstra. The restaurant is known for its fish offering, and has regularly been full and successful in the last two decades.
Tuesday was the restaurant’s last day in operation, and it was fully booked. Now, though, the Zijlstras have shut the doors for the final time- after 45 years in the horeca business. De Tjotter is up for sale for 150,000 euros, and Zijlstra hopes that new owners can rejuvenate it: “it would be a great plus for Harlingen and Friesland, because there are fewer and fewer good fish restaurants in our Province.”
Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash
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