Florian Schönhofer has been living in two worlds for two weeks, and they are fundamentally different. The operator of Café Kosmos in Dachauer Straße near the main train station introduced the 2G rule for his restaurant 14 days ago, which otherwise only applies in Hamburg: Anyone who has recovered from Covid or has been vaccinated against Corona is allowed to enter a test is not enough.
That goes a bit further than the 3G rule, which was set up in the new Bavarian Infection Protection Ordinance as a condition for indoor hospitality. Accordingly, anyone who can show a negative test is also allowed in.
“Since we announced two weeks ago that we only allow those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered into the cosmos,” says Florian Schönhofer, “we have been traveling in two worlds.” In one, the social media world, he and his employees first had to switch off the comment function on their websites. “It’s hard to believe,” he says, “what was going on. There were three death threats and I was cursed. They said my karma should kill me.” He almost laughs when he talks about it – what is called out to you in the virtual world sounds too absurd.
Schoenhofer is still calm about it: “The good thing is that in the real world nobody is obviously interested.” Because people still come to his Café Kosmos. “Nine out of ten have already been vaccinated,” he says, “apparently people who go out are simply more social than others.” Of course, people who have been vaccinated may also feel safer when they go out on the slopes again. Above all, the guests are “in a much better mood”, says the Kosmos operator, “I can only recommend my colleagues to keep it that way.” And he adds: “It has nothing to do with being locked out, it is about care.”
So far, however, Café Kosmos has not found any imitators. Christian Schottenhamel, Munich chairman of the Dehoga restaurant association: “This is currently still an isolated case.” Ben Bauer from the “Safe Our Local Gastro” initiative, who runs the Trisoux and Sehnsucht bars himself, says: “Most of the people I know stay at 3 G. There are also people who are currently still on vaccination should do without, pregnant women for example. “
2 G would be interesting for some bar operators if it were to be further relaxed. Since the distance rule of 1.5 meters has now generally fallen, that should also have been done.