It had promised to be a one-of-a-kind dining experience: “Dining in the Sky” was due to come to Lucerne last summer. Guests would be seated at a table hanging from a crane with fantastic views onto the lake and mountains and be served a gourmet meal, for the princely sum of CHF 450.- per person. Except that despite being sold out the event never took place, the company has filed for bankrupcy and noone seems to be able to get their money back.
Only 25% of local companies applied for the “Corona Financial Support” provided by the government during lockdown. This means that over 1 billion francs of aid was not handed out. To date 48 800 companies applied for support, instead of the forecast 160 000 companies. Many companies said that the bureaucratic procedures required for the aid were just too complicated.
To offset revenue loss due to last minute cancellations, restaurants are now more and more frequently applying a “no show, pay a fixed cost” policy for anyone booking a table and failing to cancel long enough in advance. Profit margins are very low and every booked seat is valuable, so restaurants can simply not afford to shrug off cancellations.
In order to save on plastic waste, the bakery Hug has invented an edible spoon to be used with ice cream or cakes. It doesn’t taste like much on its own but does improve with the addition of something sweet. Whether this will revolutionise the ice cream industry and help knock Switzerland off the number 1 spot as biggest producer of plastic waste in Europe (127 kilo per person yearly) remains to be seen.
Last night anyone close to the train station around 7 pm would have been bemused by the sight of the firemen cordening off what looked like a massive dumping of dirty mashed potatoes on the sidewalk. Apparently the mass began to ooze out of the sewage around 6.40 pm, it stank, seemed gooey and noone is quite sure what it was, but the firemen seemed to rule out anything seriously toxic. The mystery remains.
If you fancy a bit of a natter, some good beer, bagels and live music pop down to the LiLi Centre tonight at 18.00 when Tim Sutton will be serving up draught beer, I’ll be toasting bagels and Michele will be playing live music till 19.00. See you there!
