Seafood Delight Group – which runs 12 Chinese restaurants with 400 employees, about half of whom have not been vaccinated – were among the businesses continuing to operate outside the bubble on its first day.

Chairman David Leung Chi-wai said the government’s eleventh-hour requirement for staff to produce a medical certificate when seeking vaccination exemptions was complicating an already very confusing situation.

“I will need to have further meetings with health officials about the execution details before we can make any move [to join the bubble],” he said.

“It’s not easy to get a medical certificate, while we don’t want to force our staff to get vaccinated as it will damage labour relations.”

At Thursday lunchtime, most of the 23 restaurants along Jardine’s Bazaar in Causeway Bay were not requiring diners to produce their vaccine records.

“The restaurants can’t make it happen so fast. We will eventually do it, but it just can’t be today.”

Jojo Wong, who works at a cafe in an alley next to Jardine’s Bazaar, said the business would continue to operate as before, seeing little value in joining the bubble.

“We wouldn’t force the staff and customers to get vaccinated. We are a small Western-style restaurant, not like those big Chinese restaurants, we don’t need big tables.”

Amelia Su, a 25-year-old finance worker, said: “The vaccine bubble … provides a little bit of motivation for me to take the vaccine, but cross-border travel without quarantine is definitely a bigger incentive for me.”

The food and beverage industry earlier warned of a chaotic start to the vaccine bubble.

The government’s vaccination app – allowing businesses to verify customers’ Covid-19 jab records – and the paperwork required to be filled out to participate in the new system were not made available until Thursday morning.

Coronavirus: Hong Kong ‘vaccine bubble’ faces chaotic start, bar trade warns

Under the bubble, having been closed entirely since late November, bars and nightclubs without restaurant licences will be allowed to reopen at half-capacity until 2am, capped at two patrons per table – on the condition all staff and customers have received at least one vaccine dose.

Restaurants will be able to run until midnight, as opposed to 10pm, and seat six to a table – up from the current four – if all staff have been given a minimum of one vaccine shot.

Those seeking an exemption on medical grounds will need to fill in a government declaration form stating the reason, and attach a medical certificate.

All patrons, except diners aged 15 or below and over 65, must use the government’s risk-exposure app “Leave Home Safe”.

David Law, who owns a bar in Wan Chai employing five staff, said he was confused by the complex rules for reopening, including the paperwork involved and the requirements for checking patrons’ vaccination records.

“I haven’t downloaded the app yet. The government is using the bar industry as the whipping boy,” he said.

Law estimates the business has lost at least HK$5 million over the past year, having been forced to close for about nine months during that period.

The bar owner said so far he had convinced three of his staff to take the jab, but the other two refused on medical grounds.

“I told them they had to [sign the declaration form],” he said. “From a practical perspective, if we can’t open our bar because one of our staff members is not vaccinated, hasn’t got the [exemption] letter and hasn’t been tested every seven days, that staff member would have to go home.”

Pointing to the reality of not being able to work without having the jab or securing an exemption, he added: “They are smart enough to realise that they won’t be in the job, and they can’t find a job, if they don’t get into gear.”

Thai restaurant boss Sae Ngow Vasunt, who runs six venues employing about 70 staff, is among those sticking with the 10pm closure model because he does not want to pressure staff into getting vaccinated.

“We don’t want to force our staff to get jabbed. Also, the relaxation of running for two more hours until midnight would not help our business much. It’s not worth taking all the trouble,” he said.

He said some employees were dealing with medical conditions so he had to be careful when encouraging his workforce to take the shots.

Simon Wong Kit-lung, who runs 39 eateries employing 700 people under the LH Group, declared earlier that his restaurants would keep the status quo when the bubble launched.

Frontline Health Inspector Union’s Bibiana Yuen Piu-hing said it received so many complaints from the catering industry about the arrangements that staff could not handle all of them.

Restaurants operating within the bubble face varying sets of rules depending on customer vaccinations and use of the risk-exposure app, including requirements to divide the premises into different zones.

“We have received many calls from those working in the catering industry [on Wednesday], but I am sorry we were not able to answer everyone,” she said.

“The plan is not something as simple as ‘one, two, three, four’ so we need time to digest the information. We hope the public can understand our frontline colleagues. We got the information at almost the same time as everyone else.”

Additional reporting by Rachel Yeo