
We bid farewell to a “bittersweet” year in Santa Cruz
We bid farewell to a very complicated year. A 2021 that, to use a gastronomic expression, has had to “taste” and, above all, “digest” the tangled inheritance of a no less difficult 2020. The worldwide pandemic of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus has also hit our community and, obviously, our city and municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
For the project and the product club “Degusta Santa Cruz”, the year 2021 that is now coming to an end could be described, roughly speaking, as “bittersweet”. Undoubtedly, the pandemic has fully affected everyone and, how could it be otherwise, especially the suffering sector of gastronomy, hotels and restaurants in our city and municipality.
The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) tells us that the word “bittersweet” means, textually, “that has a mixture of sour and sweet”. Something simply obvious, of course. But then, regarding the term “sour”, it speaks of aspects such as “a punishment or suffering that is difficult to tolerate…”. On the contrary, with respect to the word “sweet” it speaks to us of aspects such as “pleasant, pleasing sensation…”
If we had to stay with a positive feeling, because we should never lose positivity and enthusiasm, we should stay with the sweet example of resilience that has given us the citizenship of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and, in particular, the entrepreneurship of the mentioned sector of Gastronomy, Hospitality and Catering.
It is worth recalling here the meaning of the term “resilience”, which has now unfortunately become popular”, which refers to the capacity of a living being in the face of a disturbing agent (such as the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus) or an adverse state or situation (such as that caused by the pandemic). The RAE dictionary also states that the word “resilience” is the “capacity of a mechanism or system to recover its initial state when the perturbation to which it had been subjected has ceased”.
The disturbance that we are suffering, it is clear that it has not ceased, but it is also clear that the citizens and the business community of Santa Cruz de Tenerife have faced it during this 2021 that ends in a way that must be valued and publicly recognized. The saying “in bad weather a good face” has accompanied a good number of santacruceros and santacruceras who have not lost heart and have grown in the face of adversity.
Statistics tell us that, in our Canary Islands alone, around 37,000 people wear the uniform or chef’s jacket every day. If this figure is true (and it is), imagine the number of professionals we would be talking about if we were to add waiters, baristas, bartenders, sommeliers and, of course, all the businessmen and businesswomen in the sector.
In Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the statistics tell us that 13% of the contracts signed last November, 1,295 to be exact, correspond directly to the catering sector and activity, this being the sector that traditionally hires the most personnel, together with cleaning staff and sales clerks, representing more than a quarter of the contracts signed in the municipality.
The data corresponding to the third quarter of this year 2021 that has just ended report that the city and municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has 5,667 jobs or positions, directly related to the food and beverage service. This means that the capital municipality is, if we look at the island as a whole, the territory that concentrates more employment, followed by the municipality of Arona, with 5,302 jobs.
Without being overly optimistic, but with a moderate and responsible optimism, we can say that, at present, the number of jobs and employment recorded in the same period before the pandemic has almost been recovered. It is important to highlight that, unlike the situation in Tenerife as a whole, 19% of total employment corresponds to self-employed workers, compared to 9% on the island.
It is known that Tenerife, with some 4,000 businesses legally open to the public with the category and classification of “restaurant”, has more establishments of this type than the sum of the other seven Canary Islands. In the municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the important and strategic catering sector brings together 2,796 companies, which represents almost 10% of the total number of companies in the entire municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
This reality is obviously not the result of chance, far from it. I believe that, without false humility, this reality has directly to do with the activity developed for a couple of years by the Development Society of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, whose CEO is Councilman Alfonso Cabello Mesa and, more specifically, with the actions and work carried out in the field of gastronomy, through the Degusta Santa Cruz project and product club.
It should be noted that this reality has been developed by the Development Society and the Degusta Santa Cruz project through two important lines of action, such as updating the information of the establishments adhered to the project, through its database, and the opening of a period for new establishments, freely and voluntarily, to join the project.
This review and updating of data was initially based on the figure of 185 member establishments, of which, in a first round, a total of 20 were eliminated due to business closures, leaving 165 in the base. At this point in the year, a total of 29 restaurants have joined the project, which can already be seen in the project’s directory at www.degustasantacruz.com.
We must obviously regret the closure of some establishments due to the harshness of the crisis we are going through, both economic and health-related, but, above all, we can congratulate ourselves and we should feel very proud of the new openings and bet on them.
The new establishments that have opened their doors are already listed in the directory of the Degusta Santa Cruz project website. Thus, we can name the Japanese restaurant Kiki (Imeldo Serís, 19 – first floor of the hotel Urban Anaga), the restaurant La Forêt (Rubens Marichal López, 10 – ascent to Ifara) or the restaurant North Sea (Aguere, 2 – next to Torres de Cristal, next to Barranco de Santos), Sarantontón Tapas (Paseo Milicias de Garachico), without forgetting the renovated and emblematic restaurant-cafeteria Atlantis (formerly Atlántico), on the first floor of the Real Casino de Tenerife, in the Plaza de España.
In addition, there are many and varied “gourmet” establishments directly or indirectly related to gastronomy, such as good delicatessen stores or wine shops in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Among them, the relatively new bakery and pastry shop 100% Hojaldre, owned by Alexis García (Antonio De Lara y Zárate, 3) or the already veteran bakeries like Bon Vivant (Puerto Escondido, 3), Gustofino (Suárez Guerra, 47) or Espacio Gourmet (Bravo Murillo, 16), not to forget La Garriga (Pérez Galdós 19) and the prestigious Santa Cruz wine shops, El Gusto por el Vino (57 San Sebastián Street) and Vinófilos (Adán Martín Menis, 5)
In spite of all the difficulties, Degusta Santa Cruz refuses to say goodbye to a difficult year without looking to the future with optimism and confidence in the business community and the citizens of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. We leave the 2021 complex looking forward with renewed enthusiasm and optimism to the coming new year, with best wishes to all. Happy and very “tasty” year 2022, from Degusta Santa Cruz!
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