KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Weeks of crav­ing for the savoury taste of dou­bles, aloo pies and pholourie did not re­sult in a mad rush as the sale of T&T’s pop­u­lar street foods re­sumed yes­ter­day.
But many ven­dors told Guardian Me­dia they al­so did not cook their usu­al amount of the In­do-Trinida­di­an del­i­ca­cies, as they pre­dict­ed a hash­er mar­ket brought on by COVID-19.

More than six weeks had passed be­fore ven­dors were al­lowed to re­turn to ac­tiv­i­ty yes­ter­day as Gov­ern­ment ini­ti­at­ed phase one of the COVID-19 re­open­ing plan.

Dubbed the dou­bles cap­i­tal of T&T, busi­ness at Debe Dou­bles was slow but steady, a con­trast to the usu­al crowds and traf­fic con­ges­tion along the SS Erin Road. On­ly two of the five out­lets were open.

At D’ Green Shed, Rose­mary Has­sanali said peo­ple were trick­ling in af­ter they opened at 6 am. Has­sanali said with less than 36 hours to pre­pare af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley an­nounced the lift­ing of re­stric­tions against food out­lets, Moth­er’s Day was a rush.
“It was a late an­nounce­ment and we just had to leave and run to the gro­cery to get food like chan­na. Yes­ter­day, we got ban­da­nia and gar­lic in the mar­ket. For the whole day yes­ter­day I was busy,” Has­sanali said.
But they were hap­py to re­open, es­pe­cial­ly the work­ers who spent weeks with lit­tle in­come com­ing in. Al­though there was no rev­enue for the busi­ness, Has­sanali said she did not fuss as she un­der­stood the shut­down was for the coun­try’s safe­ty.
San­dra Ram­rat­tan, the cook at Kr­ish­na’s Food Cen­tre, al­so found sales slow and sur­mised peo­ple did not have much mon­ey. Ram­rat­tan said get­ting ready to re­open was dif­fi­cult, as they had out­stand­ing bills and no in­come over the last month.
“We are try­ing to make up some in­come. We are try­ing to cope with it. The past weeks were hard, so I feel hap­py and grate­ful to­day be­cause of in­come com­ing in,” Ram­rat­tan said. 
There were signs and in­struc­tions for cus­tomers to join lines and phys­i­cal­ly dis­tance them­selves from each oth­er yes­ter­day. Has­sanali said there was al­ways a sink for cus­tomers to wash their hands and all work­ers wore masks. 
While there were re­ports of food in­fla­tion, Has­san­li and Ram­rat­tan did not no­tice any in­crease in the cost in the items they use. As such, they do not plan to in­crease their prices.
While some cus­tomers just want­ed to sink their teeth in­to the steam­ing meals, they were urged to take it away. And with a dou­ble or aloo pie tast­ing best while hot, some took it to their ve­hi­cles and ate be­fore leav­ing. 
“I was re­al­ly long­ing for hot aloo pie on the spot but it was on­ly when I reached here that I re­alised I could not do that. I am go­ing to my car and eat,” Wasym Stew­ard said.
For Sharmil­la Singh, it was five weeks since her crav­ing for a “dou­bles with slight” be­gan. 
“This feels re­al good,” Singh said as she smiled and walked off with her treat.
Along the East-West cor­ri­dor it was the same.

“No­body eh clus­ter­ing, nor­mal thing. I was ex­pect­ing that it wouldn’t be so busy from now. A lot of peo­ple now catch­ing a grip on things and then they try­ing to be safe so it will take some time,” said Khyam Ali, a ven­dor on Cipri­ani Boule­vard

Nor­man Sam­my, of George and Son dou­bles on Car­los Street, said they asked cus­tomers to keep a safe dis­tance in the line.

“But you know Tri­nis, they like to do what they want, how they want, when they want, but we ask them to keep a space in the line. We have the wa­ter with the soap to wash hands. Now we eh en­cour­ag­ing no eat­ing on the spot, we en­cour­ag­ing every­body to put they or­der, take away to avoid every­body bunch­ing up here.”

A sim­i­lar ap­proach was tak­en at Dass Dou­bles on El So­cor­ro Road, San Juan, with pa­trons on­ly al­lowed to ap­proach the ven­dor af­ter their or­der was ready. This prompt­ed one cus­tomer in the line to even joke that af­ter wait­ing six weeks, he had to wait even longer to get his dou­bles.

De­spite re­ports that there might be a con­sid­er­a­tion to raise the price of dou­bles, all ven­dors Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day kept their prices at $5.