Owners of Morningside restaurant, Kasina, devastated after being shut down on opening weekend

The owners of a flashy new Brisbane restaurant have spoken about their shock after the long-awaited opening was cut short by the latest Covid lockdown.

A Brisbane family has spoken about the devastation of having the dream opening of their new restaurant crushed by the city’s latest Covid lockdown.

The Sestic family, who had created a coffee shop and cafe empire across Brisbane in the past 15 years, finally swung open the doors on Kasina in Morningside last Friday with a packed house seemingly the perfect launch for the much-hyped venue.

Foodies were set to flock to Kasina, a 65-seat Balkan restaurant, which serves cuisine from where the Sestic’s originate from in eastern Europe, but the venue was forced to close temporarily due to Covid restrictions after just one day.

New Morningside restaurant, Kasina's grand opening was cut short due to southeast Queensland's latest Covid lockdown. Restaurant manager Tamara Sestic.

“We were taken aback when the lockdown was announced because we had just finished our first night of trading,” Kasina manager Tamara Sestic, said.

“To put it into perspective, we had just spent two months preparing for this opening weekend, and our kitchen staff had spent the entire week prior to that preparing, the thought of packing and closing up was the furthest thing from our minds.

New Morningside restaurant, Kasina's grand opening was cut short due to southeast Queensland's latest Covid lockdown.

“This has had a significant impact on our business. To begin with, we had to cancel more than 100 seatings, 100 people on whom we could have had a positive impact and who could have helped us spread the word to even more people.

“Not only that, but we now have five full-time employees to pay, without even trading. We’ve managed to get around it for the time being, but it was definitely an issue.

“As a business, we had no idea this lockdown was going to happen. This means that we ordered all of our food a week ago, and it is now just sitting in our fridge, useless to us or anyone else.

“That is a deficit in our hands.”

New Morningside restaurant, Kasina's grand opening was cut short due to southeast Queensland's latest Covid lockdown.

Ms Sestic said the lockdown had forced them to focus on trying to expand their takeaway and delivery service, which created a lot of challenges.

“Kasina is extremely grateful to have such wonderful and understanding supporters, everyone who was contacted for a date change was more than happy to do so,” she said.

“Some even asked if they could pick up food that had been prepared the week before.

“Due to the high cost of outsourcing delivery services, my family has opted to do all deliveries in Brisbane ourselves, we don’t have any other options right now because we don’t have the funds to pay someone else to do it.

“Regrettably, we have had to create a smaller, more dense menu to ensure that our quality remains high.

“So all we can hope is that we can continue to provide a great product and that people are eager to come and try us out once the lockdown is lifted.”

New Morningside restaurant, Kasina's grand opening was cut short due to southeast Queensland's latest Covid lockdown.

With the lockdown expected to continue past Sunday, Ms Sestic said the uncertainty was the toughest challenge for the new business.

“The greatest concern we currently face is the unknown. Will this last only seven days? Will it be fourteen? Is it going to be two months? We don’t know. We have no idea how we will deal with this or what we will do in the future,” she said.

“In Brisbane, we have two more cafes that have survived the previous lockdowns. The only reason these two cafes were able to remain open during these lockdowns was due to the overwhelming support of our customers.

New Morningside restaurant, Kasina's grand opening was cut short due to southeast Queensland's latest Covid lockdown.

“Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for this new Morningside restaurant. We haven’t even had the chance to introduce ourselves to these new customers, in this new community.

“We have had no contact with our customers after months of working with builders, designers, and equipment suppliers.

“People who have expressed an interest in coming to try may not live in the area so it’s difficult to launch as a takeout operation right now, but we will, simply because our Morningside neighbours and community don’t have a pattern of dining with us, therefore they may be hesitant to support us because we are unfamiliar to them.”