After fighting lockdowns, this restaurateur has bet $70m on a rebound
His new Melbourne restaurant was to be the biggest opening of 2020. Delayed yet again by lockdown, Chris Lucas is fighting for his business, and his city. The cover story of AFR Magazine’s Culinary issue.
Chris Lucas on the street below his delayed restaurant, Society. With apologies to John Brack. Kristoffer Paulsen
It was the last Wednesday of August last year when Chris Lucas decided to pull the pin on Dan Andrews and the sorry mess he’d made, as Lucas saw it, of his city of dreams.
Melburnians had been pretty much confined to their homes since March, yet the Premier had somehow remained popular. Surveys showed 70 per cent of Victorians supported his handling of the job. #IStandWithDan trended on Twitter, journalists who questioned his actions at his daily press conferences were trolled. A collective sense of keep-calm-and-carry-on prevailed.
