Restaurants have received a bump in business from residents heading out to their favourite spots on the first day of Hong Kong’s easing of social-distancing curbs, but some owners admit to hoping for a bigger jump in traffic.

One industry association reported a 10 per cent increase in business for breakfast and lunch on Thursday over levels recorded in recent days, but said many operators would wait until the weekend to gauge the level of demand.

“There have been more people coming out to eat and shop around today, that’s very obvious. But there hasn’t been any revenge spending yet,” said Ray Chui Man-wai, chairman of catering industry body Institute of Dining Art. “After all, the daily infection numbers still hover around 600 and the number of people per table is restricted to four. Patrons have become very cautious.”

Chui, who is also chairman of Kam Kee Holdings with 44 eateries under management, said many restaurants that specialised in a single type of cuisine or food such as Japanese or hotpot, enjoyed brisk bookings.

“Their dinner reservations have been full for the coming three weeks, compared with only 70 per cent full at my group,” he said.

Reservations have also poured in at fine-dining restaurants, with some booked until the end of June, as residents seek to take advantage of the extension of evening dine-in hours from 6pm to 10pm. Under the first phase of the social-distancing easing amid declining Covid-19 cases, restaurants can also seat as many as four people per table, up from two.

Banquets can host a maximum of 20 people, but all catering staff are required to get vaccinated and undergo rapid antigen tests every three days.

The catering sector, which has suffered through months of restrictions, has been banking heavily on a wave of spending fuelled by the government’s distribution of HK$10,000 (US$1,275) in digital vouchers aimed at boosting consumer spending. The first tranche was handed out earlier this month.

Traditional hotspot Causeway Bay proved to be popular with diners. At peak dinner time round 7.30pm, most of some 20 restaurants on the ground level of Tung Lung Street were about 70 per cent full while about five were packed.

The food court at Hysan Place, a mall in the same area, was about 80 per cent full at dinner time.

Among the diners, two 17 year-old students, who preferred to be called Vincent Chow and Venice Lau, said they were happy to be able to dine in.

“I’m so happy because we finally don’t need to have dinner in parks,” she said.

Chow said they were previously infected [with Covid-19] so they were not worried about transmission risks when dining out.

Another diner, who called herself Ginny Chan, said she felt excited that she could finally see her friend for the first time since the dine-in ban was imposed.

But the 30-year-old said there were fewer people out and about than she had expected. “People might also think a lot of people will dine at restaurants today so they chose to eat at home,” she said.

Seafood Delight Group chairman David Leung Chi-wai, who runs 17 Chinese restaurants, said his group enjoyed a roughly 20 per cent increase in business during the day, but only 20 per cent of its tables for dinner were booked.

“I believe business will gradually pick up especially on the weekends,” he said. “More people will come out to celebrate Mother’s Day next month.”

Mike Chan Kok-chu, director of the Happiness Group with five restaurants in its portfolio, said business remained the same as before and he too would wait for the weekend to determine the impact from the easing of curbs.

“Today our business is just so-so,” he admitted. “This is just the first day with a lot of people having to go to work and school. Business will get better during the weekends and we have more lunch bookings for the coming week.”