Cold Rock ice cream at Burleigh Heads, Broadbeach, Surfers and Q1 on Gold Coast close their doors

The global coronavirus pandemic decimating tourism on the Gold Coast was “the nail in the coffin” for a string of Cold Rock stores.

FOUR Cold Rock ice cream stores on the Coast have closed and dozens of workers are out of a job as franchisees point to a “perfect storm” of bushfires, floods and coronavirus.

The stores at Burleigh Heads, Broadbeach, the Q1 and Surfers Paradise have gone into voluntary administration and shut up shop.

Other Cold Rock Ice Creamery stores in the city, including at Coolangatta, remain unaffected.

Amanda Morrisey-Phillips, whose family are franchisees, told the Bulletin she was devastated to have to make the “heartbreaking” decision to let staff go, but had no options.

She said the number of tourists visiting the stores nose­dived in recent months.

Four Cold Rock Ice Creamery stores have closed on the Gold Coast.

“The fires happened and tourism took a huge dive over Christmas and the school holidays,” she said.

“Then we had all of the wet weather and the floods and then coronavirus – just the nail in the coffin. It’s a bit of a perfect storm and it’s such a difficult time for businesses.

“We tried as best as we could to keep the business going. We lost a huge amount of money.” About 30 staff, mostly younger people, are out of work.

The franchisees said they would pay entitlements.

The stores employed up to 50 staff during particularly busy peak periods.

“We really feel for the staff. We’ve struggled and we kept going until we couldn’t,” Ms Morrisey-Phillips said.

“We did everything we could, we feel terrible, but we couldn’t do it any longer.”

A Cold Rock worker mixes ice cream on the company’s signature ‘cold rock’.

The franchisees thanked their landlord and workers for their support in the tough times.

The Bulletin has reported extensively on city businesses struggling to stay afloat in the current circumstances.

Late last year, a string of Cold Rock franchises closed in Queensland.

Parent company Franchised Food Company Pty Ltd owns Cold Rock, which launched in Queensland in 1996 and now has more than 90 stores.

Cold Rock is well known for its extensive range of ice-cream flavours and mix-ins such as lollies and chocolate bars.

It is named after the “cold rock” used to prepare and mix ice cream.