Brisbane bar helps struggling Australian businesses

A Brisbane bar owner has decided to help businesses around the country struggling through the bushfires and severe drought.

Cedar and Pine owner Mali Hannun. Picture: Renae Droop

BRISBANE bar owner Mali Hannun could not stand by and watch people around Australia struggle through the current bushfires and severe drought.

Ms Hannun, who runs Cedar and Pine at Wynnum which reopened last year, is doing her part to help struggling businesses around the country after deciding to order wine for her venue from parts of Australia which were in crisis.

This includes wineries from Stanthorpe and the Granite Belt region who have been fighting through one of the worst droughts in history, as well as the Adelaide Hills, who have been devastated by bushfires.

Screenshot of a Facebook post from one of the wineries thanking Cedar and Pine for their help.

“Cedar and Pine has always been a very community focused venue, so I couldn’t just stand by and watch these terrible things happen around the country and not do anything,” Ms Hannun said.

“It was just time to restock the fridges and I thought I could try and put the call out to businesses from those areas to help out in the little way I could.

“From there, we had an insane response of people asking us to order from different places around the country, which have been struggling.”

As well as ordering in wines for the bar, Ms Hannun also used her takeaway license to sell the products.

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“A lot of these people can’t do anything to sell their product directly because their cellar has been damaged by fire, so our venue is kind of their cellar door,” she said.

“What I’m doing is on a very small scale really but the response from people at these businesses have been incredible and really hit home. “A lot of them send personal messages when they deliver and it’s great to see. “Some of the time we have issues with late delivery because of the fires and that sort of thing but it ends up working itself out.”

Ms Hannun said she felt privileged to be in a position to help people around the country going through serious struggles.