Sydney hot spot businesses ‘screwed’, making no money after 100-hour work weeks

Exhausted business owners in Covid hot spots in south west and western Sydney reveal the incredible difficulties they face under tough restrictions.

Western Sydney business owners think they’re “finished” as they endure the harshest restrictions in the state, leaving them struggling to make money and forcing many to dip into their savings or refinance their mortgages.

Adem Huseyin, the owner of Chickenlicious at Guildford, hasn’t seen his family for the last two months because he has been forced to work more than 100 hours a week to keep his business afloat.

Although the restaurant’s turnover is down by 70 per cent, he’s been working 15 hour days because he can’t afford to pay staff to man the shop.

Guildford is part of the Cumberland local government area, one of the 12 Sydney Covid hot spots where residents can’t leave unless they’re an essential worker and where they also must endure a curfew between 9pm and 5am.

“I open the shop at 10am till basically midnight, it’s, ‘Hi kids and bye kids’,” Mr Huseyin told news.com.au.

“I’m basically making no money. I seriously don’t know how long we’re going to wait. I’m physically exhausted, mentally exhausted.”

The dad-of-three, aged 42, used to have eight staff working on a rostered basis but can’t pay them because he doesn’t qualify for JobSaver.

Mr Huseyin’s wife has to help their kids with homeschooling, aged 8, 11 and 17, leaving him to run the shop “basically alone”.

Mr Huseyin with his wife Pinar and three kids Deniz, Eren and Derya.

Mr Huseyin has a mortgage on his house and other overhead costs from running Chickenlicious.

So far he’s spent $25,000 from his savings to keep the restaurant alive.

The space has capacity for 70 customers, leading to a large rent of $5500 a month – which he can’t afford.

“I haven’t paid rent, I’m behind two months,” he said. “I’m also looking to put my mortgage on hold at least for six months.”

Mr Huseyin’s accountant told him he wouldn’t qualify for JobSaver which provides fortnightly payments of between $1500 and $100,000 to businesses owners.

He also doesn’t qualify for the Covid-19 Business Grant, which gives a one-off grant of $7500, $10,500 or $15,000 to a business with more than $75,000 in turnover in a normal year.

“We’re not eligible for a dollar,” he said.

To qualify for government support, he has to prove he’s making 30 per cent less now than he was in 2019.

The problem was, people used cash a lot in 2019, so some of it wasn’t on his bank statement.

“2019 was more of a cash flow, 2021 was more eftpos (for Chickenlicious).

“At the moment the bank statement says I’m more busy.”

Service NSW has been in contact with Mr Huseyin after news.com.au flagged his case.

Mr Huseyin has been running the Guildford franchise of Chickenlicious for nine years.

Mr Huseyin said his store used to be busy after 8pm but the curfew has stopped that.

To adhere to the curfew, he only accepts deliveries after 9pm.

However, there aren’t many delivery drivers on the road, causing food to sit there getting cold for as long as 40 minutes.

“Basically every way we’re getting screwed over,” he said. “Most of my friends just shut down and finished.”

Mr Huseyin moved to Australia from Iraq.

“I’ve got no education,” he said. “All I did was worked hard.

“I’ve passed that down to my kids.”

The family business has been running for nine years and he hopes it stays that way.

He’s not alone.

Mum-of-three Maria Fresnel, who lives and works in the Fairfield LGA which is also under the strict restrictions, said the situation was causing both a personal and financial toll.

She is most sad that she can’t visit her 89-year-old father, who suffers from dementia and “cries every day” as he can’t understand why his family can’t see him.

Then there’s her bridal business, Roman and French, which is based in two shops in Wetherill Park and where she pays $6000 in rent a month, yet she hasn’t been able to open it since June.

The 52-year-old’s grandmother used to make wedding dresses and she always loved weddings as a little girl so eight years ago she struck out and opened her own business.

Roman and French offers high end bridal accessories including jewellery and headpieces, as well as personalised bridal robes for the morning of the big day.

When the pandemic hit last year, she had to reduce her staff from five to two, but the business recovered and was making a healthy six figure turnover.

Maria Fresnel

Roman and French were earning six figures before the latest outbreak hit. Picture: Instagram/@romanandfrench

Then the Delta strain hit Sydney leaving her “scared”.

With 200 appointments cancelled since lockdown and no money coming in, Ms Fresnel said she still faces fixed expenses a month including rent, strata fees, eftpos facilities and phone rental.

She said she receives government subsidies worth $9000 a month, which still leaves a considerable shortfall of money she has to make up.

It’s forced her to continually dip into her mortgage and redraw a large sum of money.

“I have $9000 in lay-bys, which is only prevalent in the instance that if clients are faced with the same financial stress as me, then they won’t honour their agreements until after lockdown has been lifted,” she said.

“Therefore, I can’t access this money and I also don’t want to put undue stress on my clients, so it is inaccessible funds that could otherwise assist us.”

While she is grateful for the government assistance, she has called for more help, suggesting more money based on a percentage of fixed costs be given to businesses rather than an arbitrary figure that doesn’t take into account different circumstances.

It’s all a crushing financial blow and she is facing the prospect of having to close if more help doesn’t become available, she admitted.

While Ms Fresnel has reached out to their landlord to request a rent reduction, she noted they are not obliged to pass on any assistance and they could be struggling too.

With the rules changing constantly in NSW, Ms Fresnel, who received her second vaccination this week, is particularly angry that some industries appear to be deemed more important than others.

“I’m angry that construction are deemed an industry that can return to work as long as they meet vaccination and test criteria, but why can’t we apply the same rules to all industries? Why are they so special or different?” she said.

Some of the pieces that Roman and French offer in their Wetherill Park store. Picture: Supplied

She added she feels “despondent” every time she watches the 11am press conference that updates NSW on the current Covid situation.

“The message we listen to each day is narrow minded, in that it only describes static information ‘cases’, ‘vaccinations’ and ‘deaths’,” Ms Fresnel said.

“The NSW Government acts oblivious to the fact that people’s lives also include ‘work’, ‘school’ and ‘financial income’ to survive and the 11am messages are missing the mark on the three latter points.”

The NSW Government must remember that for a large part of industry, families are locked up at home and cannot work and earn money to survive, she added.

“Especially for businesses like mine and all of my wedding colleagues, we need clients to survive and this is dependent on face-to-face appointments,” she said.

“I would be happier, if the government had a business mind and were able to clearly grasp that we all need certainty. Going month to month and rolling with our business in a reactive way, is mentally debilitating, financially incredibly difficult.

“The ramifications are more businesses will close, more people unemployed, therefore putting more pressure financially on Centrelink for people looking for jobs. Isn’t it smarter to invest in businesses now, so as to ensure their longevity and success post lockdown, rather than ‘we’ll wait and see’ approach?”

Ms Fresnel has reached out to their landlord to request a rent reduction and is calling for more details from the government to offer businesses certainty. Picture: Supplied

Ms Fresnel said she can’t sleep at night and even when the state opens up, she knows the wedding industry will be one of the last to be relieved of strict restrictions.

“The government payments will stop and if we survive, we will resume our work with very tight restrictions for weddings and we will start our business in the red on our balance sheet,” she said.

But Ms Fresnel was reluctant to complain about her circumstances as she knows there are far more people doing it tougher than her and she has been trying to make a difference to others facing the harsh restrictions.

“I know people that are worse off than me … I talked to my priest about helping out families and he told me about one with a 7-month old baby who don’t have enough money for food and nappies as well as another family. I gave them $150 with no strings attached,” she said.

“The mum also didn’t have a blender, she was squashing food with the bottom of glass for her baby so I also bought her a blender.

“To give those families $150 each as they are really struggling and to buy one a blender and have it sent to her felt good to make something happen for a family that could otherwise be in a really bad situation.”

But Ms Fresnel’s own sister, Belinda Granata, is also impacted by the situation – she owns three cafes in the Merrylands LGA and Liverpool LGA.

One of her cafes, which are called Granata’s, is in a business park in Greystanes and opened four years ago, while the other cafe is in Prestons and only opened in May this year – just before lockdown hit.

Together they have been devastated by a 51 per cent downturn in revenue.

Ms Granata employs 35 staff too but is only using a quarter of them during the lockdown.

Belinda Granata owns three cafes with her husband in the Covid hot spots and her rent was raised during lockdown. Picture: Supplied

The mum-of-two was also “shocked” to receive a letter from the real estate during lockdown informing her that her rent for her Pemuluwuy cafe would be raised by 4 per cent up to $13,000 a month, which she described as a “blow”.

“Then there’s the outgoings on top of that with suppliers and staff wages and my estimation would be another $13,000 if not more for monthly expenses,” she said.

“It’s not an easy situation, it is tough, it’s a worry and it’s a struggle.

“There is no end, if there was an end date we could work toward what is going to happen in October – it would help, but we don’t know what the government is going to say.”

A positive Covid case also visited one of the cafes and they decided to close for 48 hours in order to do a thorough clean, which was a further blow to the business.

“Cumberland is the hottest LGA that is affected so I feel like as well as affecting businesses as soon as it was named as a LGA of concern people were fearful to even go out as well,” she said.

“Before it was named I feel more people were going on daily walks and getting out of the house and once named, people were staying at home.

“When the Covid case was at out our shop, we put it out on social media and that increased the concern of our customers.

“But I wanted to be honest with our customers, of course, because I needed to let them know especially because at the time NSW Health had delayed their contacts so I felt they were a little bit behind. So I wanted to advise customers and that in turn just caused more fear in customers coming to the shop.”

The cancer survivor, said she is trying to remain positive for customers but “could literally just crumble in front of people” as she doesn’t know how she is going to pay the rent.

Like most business owners, the 49-year-old is calling for certainty on what life looks like after lockdown.

“There doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel, the Covid cases could come down and vaccinations go up but at the end of day we don’t know what that will mean for business and if Covid is going to hit again and what another variant is going to do,” she said.

Jade Pham, the co-owner of CJ Artistry, said this lockdown has been far tougher with monthly expenses of $15,000. Picture: Supplied

For Jade Pham, who owns a popular nail salon in Granville in the Fairfield LGA with her sister, this lockdown has been “so much harder” compared to last year, even though they were forced to close down a second site in 2020.

They started CJ Artistry, which has over 40,000 followers on Instagram, seven years ago and were booked out two to three weeks in advance before Sydney was shutdown.

The salon has gone from seeing 20 to 30 clients a day to Ms Pham watching it over the security camera because she is trapped by the tougher restrictions living in the Cumberland LGA.

The 32-year-old said the business had to pay $15,000 a month in expenses, which aren’t covered by the government assistance, and she also recently received a tax bill for $40,000.

“There isn’t as much support as last time. In terms of government grants, for us it took five weeks to receive our first grant and it was really hard as every day you don’t know if you are going to be able to pay your suppliers, your rent and everything like that,” she said. “With our business, we have never been behind on bills and this time it’s been really hard.”

She added many of her 10 team members are struggling with the nail salon closure causing a “massive decrease in their income” as well as affecting their mental health.

Last lockdown, CJ Artistry launched DIY nail kits that “blew up” and they used their nail artists as delivery drivers to ensure they were still getting a wage, particularly as many were on student visas and not entitled to government support.

The business has over 40,000 followers on Instagram and would usually be booked out two to three weeks in advance. Picture: Supplied

Jade Pham and her sister Cassie started CJ Artistry back in 2014. Picture: Supplied

But this time they have had to scrap the service due to the harsher restrictions where people in LGAs of concern can’t travel further than 5km.

Ms Pham said a particular struggle for small businesses like hers was the uncertainty on when this was going to end, the lack of a clear road map out of lockdown and what type of restrictions will impact on her nail salon.

There’s also the matter of whether her staff will be required to be fully vaccinated.

“When we reopen we are going to be placed under so many rules and restrictions in terms of how many people can be in the salon at a time and I’m going to have to change the roster up and open longer hours to ensure we don’t have too many people in salon at once and cater for lost appointments,” she said.

“It will be a logistical nightmare.”

In a statement to news.com.au, Service NSW said there were a number of options for government for struggling businesses, including those in western Sydney.

“The NSW Government has implemented a suite of measures for businesses designed to help reduce the financial impact of Coivd restrictions including the 2021 Covid-19 JobSaver Payment, 2021 Covid-19 Business Grant 2021 and 2021 Covid-19 Micro-business Grant,” a spokesperson said.

“Covid-19 financial support for businesses has always applied to all NSW communities.

“More than 314,000 applications have been lodged across all three grants.

“About 86 per cent of applications across all three grants have been approved equating to $2.6 billion. Of this, approximately $2.15 billion has been paid, with the remainder to be paid in the next few days.

“Outstanding applications include new applicants, or applications that require further information to be able to proceed.

“Any business, across the state, which has suffered a decline in turnover of least a 30 per cent is encouraged to apply for financial assistance.”

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Originally published as Sydney hot spot businesses ‘screwed’, making no money after 100-hour work weeks