GEILO (Dagbladet): The restaurant couple Berit Kongsvik and Frode Aga have run the popular Hallingstuene in Geilo for 32 years.
And had prominent jobs in the nightlife before that, Aga at Engebret Cafe in Oslo.
– Suddenly being shut down overnight for four weeks, no, I have never experienced anything like this, says Frode Aga.
– Much like being in a horror movie, Kongsvik comments.
Frode Aga is known far outside the Easter capital Geilo as a TV chef in the NRK series Kokkekamp a few years ago. And as a comedian and storyteller in other TV shows about travel and food.
But there’s no fun story Aga can serve now.
– Here at Hallingstuene it is closed until April 12, the Monday after Easter. All 12 employees have been laid off, and the company loses between 2 and 2.5 million in turnover.
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From 140 to 40 to zero
The restaurant got a taste in February with a stop of just over a week for alcohol, including two weekends.
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This gives employees full freedom to choose a work mobile
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– The Saturday before the bar stop was full here, between 140 and 150 guests. When the alcohol ban was introduced, we were suddenly down to 40 orders the first Saturday. And the second Saturday zero orders. We closed and laid off.
– No one goes to a restaurant here without being able to have a glass of wine with their food, Aga explains in all simplicity.
– Ban on visiting second homes? May god forbid
Hope for the summer
Dagbladet was visiting just before the commotion about the one evening celebration of Erna Solberg’s 60th birthday precisely in Hallingstuene – without the jubilee himself present.
So our talk about the closure of the nightlife industry and about 30,000 cabin guests without a traditional Easter offer, is completely unaffected by the turbulence about the Solberg family’s 13 at the table instead of 10.
Now the hope is that the summer will be as good as last year after three months of Easter and spring drought under the cabin ban.
CLOSED UNTIL APRIL 12: No Easter guests here in Hallingstuene or other restaurants in Geilo and the whole of Viken. The exception is hotel restaurants, but only for guests staying at the hotel. Photo: Jostein Sletten / Dagbladet.
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Then there were full houses and stormy cheers all summer. We hope that Norwegians’ rediscovery of holidays in their own country has settled down, says Berit Kongsvik.
Bring away?
The week before Easter, the restaurant couple dabbles in an idea of take away. Or rather bring away, food delivered at the cabin door.
For the cabin people, it is best not to go to local grocery stores either, as most have interpreted the authorities’ Easter warnings.
Such was the Erna party
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