Change. It’s one of the few constants in our hospitality industry, currently plagued by an alarming number of venue closures. As economic pressures mount, already razor-thin margins tighten and the cost-of-living crisis continues to affect diner spending.

But, increasingly, seasoned operators whose venues aren’t pulling the crowds they once did are flipping their existing sites into altogether new restaurants. In most cases, that means reshaping for broader appeal and a lower price point.

For Shannon Martinez, owner-chef of Melbourne’s first hatted vegan restaurant Smith & Daughters, “this year has been one of the worst we’ve ever had”.

Martinez, who founded the restaurant a decade ago in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, and moved to bigger premises in Collingwood in 2021, says the restaurant used to be fully booked.

“Then we were getting 30 people on a Friday night, and they were spending half [what they used to]. They would get one drink, not a bottle. And I get it. Everything’s so expensive ... I haven’t paid myself a wage since JobKeeper.”

Something had to give. The success of a pasta night – much cheaper than the $95-a-head set menu – prompted the transformation into Smith + Daughters Social Club.

It’s a more casual iteration that’s all about crowd-pleasing snacks (such as plant-based corn dogs and sauerkraut dim sims) and cocktails. Most importantly, the prices are crowd-pleasing, too.

Since relaunching last week, Martinez says, “The energy has been like a different world ... And we realised it wasn’t the restaurant’s fault at all. It was just the price point.”

Chef Peter Roddy has seen a similar uptick in business since reimagining his 13-year-old French bistro Noir – which diners pigeonholed as a special-occasion restaurant – into the laidback Pastarami, more suited to the walk-in crowd on Richmond’s Swan Street.

Since the June change-up, “bums on seats [are] at least double ... and the price point has halved,” says Roddy. “We had great regulars, but [they would come] every three months.”

A refit makes it lighter and brighter than its predecessor. And a less formal menu, with pasta dishes from $20, means fewer firm sittings, so tables can be turned with ease.

Staff retention also played into the flip, with former Noir head chef Jonno Phillips now a partner in Pastarami. “We weren’t going to be able to train a new batch of staff with the same intensity,” Roddy says. “Once you lose the people, you sort of lose the business.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by chef Aaron Turner, whose closure of two-hatted Geelong fine diner Igni after a decline in bookings made way for Songbird, a northern-Thai barbecue joint led by Igni chef Nathan Lancaster (ex-San Francisco’s now-closed Hawker Fare).

“When a restaurant slows down from a run to a walk, [staff] see the writing on the wall, and they start to leave,” Turner says. “That’s skilled labour we can’t replace.”

The change also gave Turner and business partner Joanna Smith time to take a breath. “I was tied to the kitchen 50 hours a week,” Turner says. “A small restaurant, a small team, working with small producers ... it takes every single minute of your existence.”

Songbird opened with a bang in January, Igni’s nuanced contemporary degustation making way for a more flexible, fire-powered a la carte menu served in more colourful surrounds.

But winter has been a slog. “Spending habits have really changed,” says Turner, who owns several eateries in Geelong. “The first things to go are usually simple pleasures like a midweek dinner.”

Still, he has confidence in the Songbird concept. “What I keep telling everyone is that we’re still here, so we must be doing something right.”

Longevity was also front of mind for restaurateur Kirbie Tate. When a friend asked her last year whether her hatted South Melbourne diner James would still be around in 20 years, she realised the answer was no.

On August 31, she’s shuttering James and will reopen it as all-day European bistro Kirbie in September, a place she does think can last the distance.

“Through winter we saw a 40 per cent drop on the year before,” she says. “Our lunch trade in the past 12 months has dwindled to almost nothing.”

The menu – with its Korean and native-Australian flourishes – will be replaced by a more sustainable offering of well-made home-style dishes you can eat on repeat.

By dropping the price point “dramatically” and being more flexible, Tate hopes it’ll become a trusty local for spontaneous visits, rather than a destination diner.