Restaurants have been struck off the menu in Beijing for the Labour Day holiday, with the municipal government banning dine-in services to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
From Sunday, restaurants across the Chinese capital will only be able to offer takeaway services over the break.
Ding Jianhua, from Beijing's commerce bureau, said on Saturday that residents were encouraged to cook at home but they would still have easy access to food deliveries.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
Ding suggested that restaurants, couriers and retailers could "share manpower" to ensure deliveries.
A manager of a popular burger restaurant in the east of Beijing said the situation was stressful and the reduction in services would cost his business about 20,000 (US$3,025) yuan per day, German news agency DPA reported.
Beijing reported 53 new local symptomatic and six asymptomatic cases on Sunday, according to the National Health Commission.
While this is well below Shanghai's tally of 788 local symptomatic and 7,084 asymptomatic infections for the same day, the capital has been on guard against the spread of the Omicron variant, doubling down on mass testing and social distancing requirements for the holiday.
From Thursday, the end of the five-day break, residents in the city will have to provide proof of a negative PCR test result taken within the previous seven days to use public transport and enter office buildings, entertainment venues and sporting facilities.
A negative test result will also be needed to go to gyms, shopping malls, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, libraries, museums and tourist attractions, municipal authorities said on Saturday.
Beijing has also announced the reopening of the Xiaotangshan hospital, a temporary medical centre originally set up to tackle severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars.
The hospital has nine isolation units and 1,200 beds. Beijing Youth Daily reported that one isolation unit was operating, and 12 asymptomatic and mild cases had been treated there.
Meanwhile, delivery platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me are preparing for an expected increase in demand for their services during the dine-in ban.
Ele.me estimated that daily takeaway orders on its platform would increase by half during the dining ban.
Ele.me is owned by Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.
And, Meituan is expected to give out up to 8 million yuan in subsidies to delivery riders to keep up with demand, according to local media.