Liquidation docs show Gympie Bunker Smoke House bar had $400k debt

The owner of a Queensland business that has gone into voluntary liquidation owing 19 creditors hundreds of thousands of dollars has revealed the heartache and stress they have endured. It comes as the tax office is owed $80 billion nationally.

Jarrod Dan says the liquidation of the popular Bunker Smoke House and Bar at Gympie came as a result of a six-figure Tax Office debt incurred during the Covid pandemic.

The owner of the Gympie-based Bunker Smoke House, which shockingly closed at Christmas, says “inconsistent” rules during the Covid pandemic and a $400,000 debt sank the one-time successful and popular bar and restaurant.

Liquidation documents for The Dangleys Pty Ltd, the company behind the now closed Bunker Smoke House and Bar in Reef St, have revealed the business was saddled with more than $400,000 in debt at the time it was wound up.

The documents, lodged with ASIC and published online, show the eatery’s parent company, The Dangleys Pty Ltd, owed money to 19 creditors when it was voluntarily liquidated in February 2024.

The largest debt was to the Australian Taxation Office.

At the time of the company’s collapse, the tax office was owed a combined bill of $198,411.

The main part of this bill was $182,365 owed to the tax office generally, with another $16,046 outstanding in super guarantees.

Jarrod Dan and Lauren Langley opened the Bunker Smoke House and Bar at Reef St in late 2020, during the Covid pandemic.

Of the remaining debt, $89,000 was owed to lending company Secure Funding, which trades as Liberty Financial.

Suppliers made up the bulk of the remaining creditors.

These debts included $20,325 to Silver Chef Rentals, $10,698 to Rangeland Quality Meats, $8334.81 to Gympie Meat Hall, and $5363.14 to Cooloola Food Services.

The Smoke House opened in late 2020, swiftly becoming a popular place for live music, including a “hoedown” after the 2021 Muster was cancelled.

The documents show the Langleys started investigating liquidation options in October, 2023.

Smoke House owner Jarrod Dan said Tuesday fighting to keep the bar afloat for the past four years had been “stressful”.

“The government completely stopped us as an industry,” Mr Dan said.

When customers were allowed back, they were subject to numerous restrictions which were often contradictory between different levels of government.

“Not only was it unrealistic it was inconsistent,” he said.

Jarrod Dan was an outspoken critic of the Covid restrictions implemented for small businesses in the wake of the pandemic, saying they were “inconsistent”, and when combined with the ensuing cost-of-living crisis made it almost impossible to bring the business back to balance.

The pandemic was quickly followed by the cost-of-living crisis, which inflated prices across the board.

“There was no light at the end of the tunnel,” Mr Dan said.

Finally shutting the business down after years of effort was “soul crushing”.

“We did a lot for the community and we’re proud of that,” he said.

“(The ATO) are trying to call in debt.

“There’s no way out of it.”

Liquidator Paul Nogueira, who was handling the matter, said latest figures showed the tax office was owed about $80 billion nationwide.

The tax office considered about $53 billion to be collectable, he said.

He said the Bunker’s owners had “looked at their balance sheet” and decided that, with the Bunker’s lease also ending, “liquidation was the cleaner option”.

Mr Nogueira said the Bunker’s story was not going to be unique in the post-Covid world.

The tax office had been extremely helpful to businesses during the pandemic through payment plans and the ability to restructure, Mr Nogueira said, “but now they need to collect”.