Gold Coast hospitality and entertainment businesses smashed by snap southeast Queensland lockdown from 4pm Saturday
Gold Coast restaurants were forced into an eleventh-hour food giveaway, while others sent home staff and dumped thousands of dollars worth of stock after the snap lockdown was announced on Saturday.
Gold Coast
Don't miss out on the headlines from Gold Coast. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- ‘The skills are incredible’: Ancient craft in Coast shopping centres
- Former AMA Group CEO to sell company’s Bundall HQ
Gold Coast hospitality bosses have been forced into an eleventh-hour food giveaway, sending home staff and dumping thousands worth of stock after the snap lockdown on Saturday.
Small hospitality businesses already cruelled by the closure of Queensland’s border with NSW were relying on Saturday night trade – for most, their busiest of the week – to tide them over.
Now they are left to get by takeaway-only trading, with little or no income in the face of mounting rent, staff and supplier bills.
Many operators are angry at the timing of the lockdown, saying even a midnight start instead of 4pm could have saved them a valuable night’s trade.
Emma Milikins, founder of Miami Marketta, which hosts 21 food and drink vendors, said the entire hospitality sector was “exhausted” after repeated lockdowns.
“Everybody would have lost all their food for the Saturday trade and they’re small businesses so it’s a big blow,” she said.
“It was very sad to see them all come in on Saturday to pack up their tents – some were very distraught and just worried about their future.
“I don’t know what the rhyme or reason is at the health department anymore - it seems like they had the information and could have called it on Thursday.
“I think most businesses feel like (the government) are making it up as they go along.”
FULL DIGITAL ACCESS: JUST $1 A WEEK FOR THE FIRST 12 WEEKS
At Main Beach, fine-dining seafood restaurant Omeros Bros tried to recoup some of the lost Saturday night trading by selling seafood direct to the public before the lockdown.
Ben Walsh, whose Goodtime Group operates venues including Miss Moneypenny’s at Broadbeach and Noosa, said the timing could not have been worse.
“In the restaurant business on a Saturday, you’re fully stocked for the busiest day of the week,” he said.
“Our staff ended up eating very well with prawns and oysters – we pride ourselves on our fresh food and you can’t just stick all this stuff in the freezer.”
Mr Walsh said his restaurants had been relying on weekend trade, predominantly from locals, as midweek trade had all but dried up with the border closures.
“We’ve been relying on the weekends for that cash injection,” he said.
“I’ve had to refund more than $100,000 in function deposits. I employ around 100 people and most of them are casual so unfortunately they hit a brick wall straightaway.
“We’re not set up well for takeaways yet but we’ll look to ramp that up this week – it won’t come anywhere near covering our costs but at least it can go towards keeping our full-time staff employed.”
Queensland’s chief medical officer Jeanette Youngwas asked why the NRL had the opportunity to present new Covid plans enabling them to go ahead while small businesses had no choice but to shut down.
The NRL will go ahead with no spectators and limited support staff.
“Of course I sympathise, and the last thing I want to see is any business that has been closed and got into financial difficulty, but we have to manage this,” Dr Young said.
“The difference with the NRL is that they’ve actually been in a bubble.
“They have been in a bubble for quite a while so they’re nowhere near the same risk as other businesses that have been dealing with the community face-to-face, day-by-day, so it is a totally different situation.”
Pivoting to takeaway service is not an option for David De Vito, whose cabaret De Vito Waterfront Restaurant is patronised as much for its entertainment as for its food.
“It was Saturday afternoon when we heard about the lockdown and we were preparing for 250 people over the next two days,” Mr De Vito said.
“I’ve just been down to the church and donated the food, it’s better than throwing it in the bin.
“We’re a different type of restaurant, we’re an experience restaurant, we can’t just do takeaways.”
Linc Testa, who has run popular Madison’s Cafe and Patisserie at Broadbeach for 22 years, said the pandemic had brought the worst trading conditions he’d seen in his 38 years in the industry.
“It’s the worst because we have no control over it,” he said.
“We’re down to 20-25 per cent of what we normally do – from a wages point of view it hurts and from a rent point of view it hurts – landlords still want 100 per cent of the rent.
“The big fear now is that we don’t know if we’re going to get any help with the rent.”
Mr Testa said because Madison’s baked their products fresh each day he hadn’t had to dump any food, and that the cafe remained open for takeaways.
However without the interstate travellers and the Brisbane drive market, locals are the only customers.
“We’re lucky because the Woolworths nearby is open, so people are getting their essential groceries then coming over for a takeaway coffee or cake,” he said.
“But it’s hard – for example this weekend there was supposed to be 2000 cheerleaders here in Broadbeach, but they’re not here.
“We just need everyone to get vaccinated – once everyone is vaccinated we can treat this like the flu and get on with our lives.”
Originally published as Gold Coast hospitality and entertainment businesses smashed by snap southeast Queensland lockdown from 4pm Saturday
Premier refuses to reverse cuts to Gold Coast police beats
The Premier has refused to intervene and reopen the Gold Coast’s police beats despite reopening them in other regions. Read why.
‘Keeps getting better’: Huge success for country music festival
Groundwater Country Music Festival has been declared a major success, with officials predicting an $11 million economic boost from the event and an international act telling fans it was “unbelievable”. FULL STORY