‘We’re all bleeding’: Businesses beg to be saved from fatal blow
As Melbourne’s lockdown drags on, business owners on popular retail and dining strips in Footscray and St Kilda say their dreams are being shattered as debts mount and warn they may be forced to close down when the city finally opens up.
Victoria
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Business owners on popular shopping and restaurant strips are sounding the alarm that Melbourne’s COVID lockdown could sound their death knell.
Sixteen shops in one block on Barkly Street, Footscray, are empty amid fears other businesses could reopen when restrictions ease, only to be hit hard by costs and then fold.
For Stuart Lucca-Pope, 50, starting the Littlefoot Bar five years ago was the realisation of a dream that took his life savings.
But the bar has accrued costs of up to $5000 a month since it has been closed, with little for Mr Lucca-Pope to fall back on.
“There’s a big debt bubble for us on the other side of this,” he said.
Local traders association president Leanne Falloon, who owns Footscray’s Exercise Room gym, said: “We’re all bleeding.
“I see our gym members down the street — there’s so many struggling. It’s not going to be until businesses can actually open again that we will see the wash-up.”
Ms Falloon said when COVID-19 first hit “a lot of sole traders and shops run by groups of families, just closed up” — shattering the dreams of many migrant families running a store or restaurant.
She said she wondered if it would have been better to wind up her own business at the start of the pandemic rather than battling on.
“Our rent is $100,000, which we haven’t been able to pay because we’ve had eight months with absolutely no income,” Ms Falloon said.
“It’s been like putting money into a poker machine.”
Ms Falloon said she didn’t know how many, if any, of the 16 vacant shops on Barkly Street — in the block between Victoria and Albert streets — were empty before the lockdowns.
In Buckley Street, Seddon, co-owner of the LayLow Bar, Colin Wood, has been one of the lucky business owners able to successfully pivot to an online and takeaway model.
His pre-mixed, home-delivered or pick-up cocktails have proved a hit.
But Mr Wood said he feared the COVID lockdowns had “made a massive dent and maybe even had a fatal impact” on the “fiercely evolving” bar, night-life and restaurant scene in Melbourne’s west.
“We have to hold hope that has not been the case,” he said.
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In St Kilda’s Jacka Boulevard, it’s not just the hopes of entrepreneurs and high-profile restaurateurs that are fading as lockdown grinds on.
With the foreshore’s landmark wining and dining institutions closed for months, hundreds of staff members — once nursing hospitality dreams of their own — are giving up on again finding jobs in the languishing industry, employers say.
Angela Dawson — who co-owns the hospitality company behind Jacka Boulevard’s historic St Kilda Sea Baths restaurants Republica, Captain Baxter and Encore — said huge debts incurred over the pandemic period were threatening businesses’ futures.
While most St Kilda restaurants and bars were set to reopen when COVID restrictions were lifted, the real financial pain of the lockdowns would only be felt down the track, she said.
Ms Dawson said some restaurants had accrued debts “in the six figures”, and it was unclear how many would be able to “weather their debts” and survive.
“The debts are becoming more and more untenable ... there are certainly people who won’t get through,” she said.
Only 39 of her company’s 200 staff had qualified for JobKeeper, with the rest stood down, and of its three St Kilda venues only Republica had kept its doors open during the second lockdown for takeaway coffee and sandwiches.
“The only reason we kept Republica open really was so that people would know we were still alive ... so there was a glimmer of hope, a flicker of a candlelight to let them know that when we can open, we will,” she said.
Like her neighbour, Stokehouse owner Frank Van Haandel, she believes the state government’s plan to expand alfresco dining is unsustainable and will not work with the city’s unpredictable weather.
“We want to be open indoor and outdoor as soon as possible ... outside isn’t viable on its own,” she said.
Janet Rosenberg, president of St Kilda’s Acland St Traders Association and retail store owner, said businesses beyond the boulevard were hurting, with many empty shops in Acland and Fitzroy streets even before the lockdown.
The pain, and number of vacant stores, would grow as traders were forced to repay debts after reopening, Ms Rosenberg said.
“Even if it’s reduced or deferred, rent is still a burden hanging around their necks,” she said.
“I think everyone here is very badly affected and it remains to be seen how many will go under.
“All these deferred payments are going to hit people when we are opened up again and that’s going to be a very big problem.”
St Kilda Tourism and Events’ Travis Atkin said about 300 of the 400-odd venues on his database were small businesses at risk of going under if they didn’t have sufficient financial back-up, which would be “as much a tragedy as the illness’’.
“We have faith that we can work through this and get the larger businesses out the other side,’’ Mr Atkin said.
“Our concern is that some of the smaller businesses — particularly hospitality night-time venues — won’t have back-up.
“What we want is a quick and safe release on restrictions as soon as possible because the future may be bright but if the future comes well into next year, in Melbourne’s fickle weather, that may not be enough.
“If we can come out of this where we went into it — and that’s highly unlikely — that would be a dream.”
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