Two pandemic years decimated the businesses that made money from tourism, and the physical presence of the visitor in the city provided them with a daily livelihood: from cafes, to shops and guides.

I deliberately did not want to pay attention to people who run tourist traps with generic goods or to those who opened another branch of the bakery at Trdelník.

On the contrary, I focused on those I know and trust, entrepreneurs who simply wanted to use the potential of the millions of people who visit Prague every year.

“We packed it up and took the equipment, including the coffee machine, to the cottage on the attic,” says Jan Maťátko, who with his two business partners Olga and Anna, opened the successful café Tricafé in 2013 in the center of Prague.

Before the pandemic, the café had been operating very successfully for more than seven years and was one of the ones that tourists preferred to take pictures on Instagram. It was one of several sympathetic central places where tourists and locals naturally mixed up and didn’t mind each other.

“Tourists have estimated to generate about sixty or seventy percent of visitors, but we also had a steady income from the people who worked around, several nearby schools, and from dancers and ballet people,” Honza recalls.

You could find the café on the miniature Anenské náměstí near the Na Zábradlí Theater, which also houses the ballet rehearsals of the National Theater.

The advantage of the café, which also once rented it, was in the locality – the square is a bit sideways, but Charles Bridge and Charles Street, full of cracks in the season, are only a two-minute walk away.

On the contrary, what was originally an advantage on March 020 became a significant problem.

“A minimum of people live here. In the house where we had a cafe, there were a number of apartments for short-term rent. The moment they came to see them, they suddenly stopped completely, the surrounding schools closed and the people who worked around us under normal circumstances moved to the forced home office, we were suddenly almost without customers. There were also days when two people came for the whole day, “he explains.

The final decision to close came in September 2020. A new lockdown and a strong appeal by the German government to keep the Germans, who at that time made up a large part of foreign visitors to Prague, did not go to the Czech Republic.

They knocked down the first three months of the lockdown with government support. However, this meant that they dismissed all employees and temporary workers, the owner had to serve the whole day. It picked up a bit in the summer, but in September, when it started to look pale again.

“I went to the landlord then to see if she was willing to cut our rent for a short time. I expected him to meet our needs. But she made it clear that it was out of the question, so we agreed on a resignation and packed everything up in a few days, “says Honza, who, after a short time, tried to find a new space in a more residential part of Prague. sports brand manager.

“Paradoxically, the space has now been closed for over a year and without a tenant. “Even at the entrance, even after more than a year, a sign hangs that Tricafé is ending here,” he shrugs.

Lenka Hluchá also experienced a completely different approach to the above. “The municipal joint-stock company that takes care of the Platýz passage, where one of our stores was located, has strictly rejected a short-term rent reduction,” Lenka explains one of the reasons why she no longer does business.

In 2015, Lenka decided to create original, modern souvenirs from Prague, which were also designed by local designers and illustrators.

The Pragtique brand, whose store in Platýz was nominated for the Czech Grand Design Award a few years ago, has grown over the course of a few years. In 2020, before the pandemic, Lenka ran two branches, in addition to the one in Platýz, an even smaller store in Mostecká Street near Charles Bridge, and an e-shop.

“While the private owner, with whom we were in Mostecký, I had no problem with the short-term reduction at all, the Platýza operator, a company in the city of Prague, was absolutely unequivocal about the reduction,” Lenka shrugs.

Moreover, the city’s illogical intransigence was in direct conflict with the city’s official position, which during the pandemic made it clear that it wanted to help and accommodate local entrepreneurs as much as possible.

“It is possible that I could have trampled it, went to someone at the town hall or something, but I accepted it just the way it is,” he adds.

In a situation where they suddenly found themselves from stable incomes to virtually zero, Lenka was definitely not alone. In a similar segment, ie modern (or high-quality) souvenirs for tourists, at least two other brands were created – Lípa and From Prague With Love. But they also closed their stores very soon after the lockdown began.

Like the owner of the Tricafé café, Lenka also found another job after some time.

“Even with the help of the state, it is not sustainable to take it further if your income falls by, for example, eighty percent. Although Minister Havlíček claimed several times on television that the government would pay one hundred percent of the rent to entrepreneurs, this never happened. For some, it is a shock, but there are a number of shops in the center of Prague that pay rent, for example, over a hundred thousand a month, Lenka thinks.

“And when the government gives you half, it still means you have to pay over fifty. To do this, you have additional costs for the sellers, the goods and for yourself, “he calculates. Pragtique stores thus remain closed. But Lenka takes it in stride.

“I, I still get out of it, but the owner of the cut glass company, who has been producing glass and souvenirs since the early 1990s, had a shop in Mostecký. He had done this half his life, employed ten grinders, and knew that if he released them, he would not find others. In the meantime, the original ones will find work in another field, and the younger generation can no longer do the craft. “

Jan Valenta, who together with his wife Zuzana runs gastronomic tours of the city of Taste of Prague, was no different in March 2020.

“All we did all day was canceled one tour after another. And we couldn’t exchange people other terms or at least tell them when it would end. Nobody knew anything, “Honza recalls of the chaotic period after the first lockdown last spring.

The gastronomic tours, which have been held together with Zuzana since 2011, should have been particularly suitable, they were not tied to a physical place with a fixed rent. but it wasn’t much better with regard to staff: “At the beginning of 2020, five other people were doing it besides the two of us. We all had to let them go, there was simply no work from day to day, ”he recapitulates.