Susana O’Dwyer says she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In January, she brought her father and her sister to Malta from Colombia to assist her in her new venture. It was to be a new bar, the successor to her and her partner’s other successful venues.

Very much a family affair, her father would invest in the new venue, and work as the chef there.

She would take her clients’ favourite elements of the other pubs and combine them with a décor inspired by the Amazon, with exotic plants, flowers and greenery as a backdrop against a more traditional pub atmosphere.

This would become The Red Parrot, named as such when she noticed that the colours of the bird; red, blue and yellow, matched the colours of the Colombian flag.

She was searching for her perfect location when, in March, Malta went into a tight national lockdown.

When the nation emerged, finding a location to rent was more difficult.

Many landlords now were requesting a deposit equal to six-months of rent, and an additional six-months of rent paid in advance - twice as much as they were before, she says.

In October, after a spike in COVID infections, the Government ordered all bars to close. As things stand, bars will be closed until at least the start of February.

Two of the three venues run by Susana and her family were forced to shut. The third, the Crafty Cat, didn’t have to close, but had to stop selling alcohol, which previously provided 75-80 per cent of the pub’s takings, making its operation prohibitively loss-generating.

Susana returned her attention to the Red Parrot. Having found a venue after a nine-month search, the process of setting it up began.

Under current restrictions, the Red Parrot, which will only have a snack-bar license, will not be permitted serve alcohol.

Susana has considered trying to acquire a restaurant license but says it would be prohibitively expensive after the year they’ve had.

She initially intended to import ingredients for her food from Spain, but facing a deteriorating COVID situation there, exports are increasingly difficult. Instead, she says that she’s managed to find some of the specialised ingredients in African grocery stores but that she’s had to pay above the market rate for them.

Brexit too, has posed problems for her. Her plan was to order decorations for the bar from the UK, but many of the items she was looking for could no longer be sourced so easily.

Much of the stock left at her other venues has expired, so she now faces the expense of purchasing new stock, even in the knowledge that further measures might be announced that would force her to postpone the bar’s opening and force her to discard even more stock.

Then there are staffing problems. Having previously hired many expats, especially from Ireland, Susana faces another issue. Most of her employees could not afford to stay in Malta and returned home.

She says this time, the Red Parrot will probably try to rely more on agency workers. Having been unable to provide support for her staff once, she doesn’t want to be in that situation again.

Despite everything, Susana remains positive. She says she plans to open the Red Parrot with a reduced menu in February.