Sydney cafe owner Sunil Shrestha counts cost of Rail, Tram and Bus Union industrial action

A Sydney CBD cafe owner has warned ongoing industrial action on trains will come with “major consequences” for his businesses after they lost up to $10,000 in just two days.

A Sydney CBD cafe owner has warned ongoing industrial action will come with “major consequences” for his businesses after they lost thousands of dollars in just two days.

Sunil Shrestha, 43, owns Tom and Gerry’s in Wynyard, Wild Flour in Redfern and Cafe 1812 in Paddington.

A 14-year veteran of the Sydney cafe scene, he told The Daily Telegraph his venues had lost a combined total of between $7000 and $10,000 since the Rail, Tram and Bus Union’s latest industrial action kicked off on Wednesday.

“The last two days, my sales have been down at the very least 30 per cent,” Mr Shrestha said on Thursday.

“Usually, we will sell 12kg of coffee per day (at each cafe). Yesterday and today, only seven.

Cafe owner Sunil Shrestha. Picture: Julian Andrews

“We can’t keep running like this. If this carries on for more than a month, there will be major consequences for my business.”

On top of the massive drop in foot traffic, Mr Shrestha has been unable to get staff into work on time or, in some cases, at all.

Commuters dealing with train delays and cancellations at Chatswood train station. Picture: Thomas Lisson

On Wednesday, Mr Shrestha had to open his Paddington cafe three hours late and fork out more than $100 to help one of his staff travel into the city from Penrith.

“You can’t expect your employees to pay that,” he said.

“I had to make the decision to pay for her travel to and from work, or risk losing business for the entire day.”

Meanwhile, another cafe owner in Chippendale feels he has been unfairly targeted after putting a “joke” sign saying there was a “15 per cent surcharge for all Sydney train employees”.

Hatch Espresso owner Sam Saleh with the 15 per cent surcharge sign. Picture: Supplied

Hatch Espresso owner Sam Saleh said an inside joke between himself and union members backfired after a Tik Tok video poking fun at the industrial action “blew up”.

Within hours of the video being posted, Hatch was inundated with negative Google reviews.

“We always put a few signs up as a joke with our customer base,” Mr Saleh said.

Commuters at Chatswood train station during the current industrial action. Picture: Thomas Lisson

“This time, we put it up with the Sydney Trains employee customers that come to the store. They all found it funny. They were there when we did it.

“We had a couple of customers in the union messaging us that other members were trying to ambush our store.”

Mr Saleh told the Telegraph he had approached Google about the more than 20 “low-star reviews”.

Originally published as Sydney cafe owner Sunil Shrestha counts cost of Rail, Tram and Bus Union industrial action