(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - FAST food outlets have been forced to temporarily suspend delivery services to villages across the country due to street demonstrations.
A Burger King spokesman said it has had to suspend deliveries in six branches following demonstratons.
"We cannot enter some areas and have to suspend our delivery services," he told the GDN.
"We had to suspend services of the Country Mall branch for two hours recently due to extensive road blocks.
"It doesn't happen everyday but when protesters take to the streets."
Yum Yum Tree food court operations manager Nalakath Abdulkareem revealed cars had been provided to its delivery staff in a bid to keep its services fully operational.
"We are not going to stop home deliveries to disappoint our beloved customers," he said.
"We have provided cars to our deliverymen, who are not afraid to go to demonstration areas.
"If roads are blocked, they know all the short cuts to reach the destination."
Delivery drivers at Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), which has 19 branches across the country, have also been affected.
"They avoid going to areas with lots of checkpoints as it takes time and the customers get annoyed if delays occur," said a spokesman.
"If protesting or blockade is taking place, they immediately call the call centre and inform about the situation and we ask them to come back.
"Safety comes first as they are humans as well and don't want to risk their lives."
McDonald's general manager Ali Al Haj told the GDN officials do not pre-plan whether to avoid certain areas, but work according to the situation on each day.
"We care for our staff and can't risk their lives," he said.
"We suspend delivery temporarily if demonstrations continue across Bahrain.
"But if protests take place in specific areas, we ask our deliverymen to avoid these areas."
A Jasmis spokesman said contingency plans were also in place if demonstrations broke out.
"If there are protesters, the delivery boys call our operations manager for advice on what to do," she said.
"We are taking orders for home delivery depending on the area and whether our delivery service would be able to reach that destination.
"If we think it's not a safe area, we ask our delivery section not to take order from the customers.
"We track them from time to time through our tracking system and ask them to call immediately once they see something unusual on their way."
A spokesman for Jawad Business Group, which has 13 food outlets, said its delivery services had increased as a result of the street demonstrations.
"Many people are more cautious and are stressed out because of the demonstrations, they prefer home delivery rather than going and picking it up themselves," he said.
"And they also want to avoid major tailbacks.
"So in my view delivery sections in all sectors are doing well."
Pizza Hut has also suspended deliveries to demonstration areas.
"We don't send our deliverymen to these areas" said a supervisor.
"When these protests happen, policemen arrive at the scene and don't allow our staff to go inside the areas, so we don't send them for delivery."
"This has been continuing on and off for the past one year now."
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