Netizens encourage the restaurant with five-star reviews and favorable comments. Photo: VCG

 A restaurant in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, was forced to suspend business again after it was visited by customers who were later diagnosed with COVID-19. In order to encourage employees of the restaurant, netizens left five-star reviews for it on rating platforms. 

The recent two COVID-19 carriers it served were tourists from Shanghai and were reported as infected on Sunday, a day after their half-an-hour visit to the restaurant. The restaurant later suspended business, and all staff members were soon quarantined on Sunday morning and have undergone nucleic acid tests for several times, all which came back negative. 

It was not the first time the restaurant was forced to shut down due to epidemic control. On July 30, two tourists visited the restaurant and were later confirmed to have been infected by the highly contagious virus, which led to the restaurant's temporary shutdown. The restaurant has just reopened for less than two months before an unexpected COVID-19 resurgence shut it down again. 

Netizens nationwide noticed the "unlucky" restaurant and sent encouraging messages online. "It must serve tasty food to attract so many tourists," wrote one netizen on China's Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo. "I will sure visit it next time I'm in Xi'an."

Global Times