Rashays months from opening first Maroochydore restaurant due to border closures

A former Sunshine Coast Sizzler site remains vacant after almost 12 months despite a popular family-friendly restaurant franchise ready to move in. Find out why.

Delays to the opening of a new family-friendly restaurant at the former Sizzler site caused millions of dollars in losses, according to the business owner.

Restaurant franchise Rashays was expected to open at the Aerodrome Road, Maroochydore site before December but that date was pushed back to February due to border closures.

It would be its fourth Queensland franchise to add to the Sydney-based empire’s 30 restaurants which specialised in family-friendly meals.

Owner Rami Ykmour said the Sunshine Coast store would create 150 jobs, with some already filled.

“The design is done, the equipment is in, everything is done but now it just depends on us being able to get up there,” he said.

“We need to get there to make sure Maroochydore is built in the right spirit as a Rashays.”

Mr Ykmour signed a 10-year lease, with options to extend, in August after Sizzler closed in November, 2020.

“We’ve taken over a few Sizzler sites in Sydney and every time we’ve done that we’ve been very successful,” he said.

Rami Ykmour will not open Maroochydore’s first Rashays until February.

He said they had wanted to be open for the Christmas holiday rush.

Mr Ykmour estimated they would have missed out on millions of dollars in trade due to the delayed opening.

“It’s a 300-seater restaurant … in terms of the losses I don’t even want to think of those numbers,” he said.

“The fact I’ve been locked away from Brisbane and Queensland breaks my heart.

“We’re disappointed that we’re going to miss out.”

Mr Ykmour recently announced his New South Wales stores would remain closed until December or when unvaccinated people were legally allowed to enter.

Vaccine passports will begin a two-week trial in rural NSW on October 6.

“I don’t want my staff to be facing arguments at the front door on why customers can or cannot come in because of their double-vaccine passports,” Mr Ykmour said on TikTok.

Mr Ykmour said the hospitality industry could not afford to continue to open and close.

“I’m pro vaccine, and I’d encourage everyone to get vaccinated,” he said.

“We don’t want to be in a position where we continue to open and close, the hospitality industry can’t afford it.

“But I am behind a freedom day for all.

“I don’t want separation between people being allowed in or not because of their vaccine passport stance.”

 Sunshine Coast health experts this week reiterated the need for people to be vaccinated as contact sites began to appear closer to the region’s southern border.

Sunshine Coast Local Medical Association president Dr Roger Faint stressed the need to reach the 80 per cent vaccinated mark given how rapidly the Delta variant had spread in other areas.