Restaurant chain spanning across three states goes into voluntary administration

A fine dining restaurant chain spanning three states has gone bust while administrators urgently look for a way to turn its fortunes around.

A fine dining restaurant chain that sold steak for as much as $500 a piece and spanned across three Australian states has gone bust.

On Tuesday, hospitality business Good Group Australia, which operated the Botswana Butchery chain and three other Asian restaurants, plunged into administration.

Botswana Butchery had high-end steakhouses in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra in prime locations.

Meanwhile, three other businesses which also traded under the group’s banner, White and Wong’s, based in Martin Place in Sydney and Chadstone in Melbourne, and Wong Baby in Melbourne’s Chapel St, have also been impacted.

Although the Botswana Butchery chains continues to operate its restaurants, the other restaurants have ceased trading.

The appointed administrators, Andrew Sallway and Duncan Clubb of insolvency firm BDO Australia, said that

“White & Wong’s Sydney ceased to trade upon our appointment, while White & Wong’s Chadstone and Wong Baby Chapel ceased to trade before our appointment”.

They said they have begun an “urgent assessment” of the company’s affairs and would be looking to restructure the businesses or sell it to someone else in its totality.

News.com.au has contacted the administrators for comment on how many staff are employed across the groups.

Hospitality business Good Group Australia is in administration. Picture: @botswanabutcherysydney/Instagram

The Botswana Butchery chain originated from Queenstown, on New Zealand’s South Island.

“The voluntary administration does not affect the New Zealand operations of the Good Group,” administrators said.

In recent years the company had tried to establish a presence on Australia’s east coast.

It launched in Australia just after the height of the pandemic, in 2022.

The Canberra arm of Botswana Butchery had only launched two months prior to administrators being called in.

Botswana Butchery offered an eyebrow-raising 1.6-kilogram wagyu tomahawk covered in gold leaf, which cost $500 per person.

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The business had six restaurants across Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. Picture: @botswanabutcherysydney/Instagram

It comes as Australia’s hospitality scene has been pummelled in recent months against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis.

Just last week, news.com.au reported that another steakhouse had gone under.

Six restaurants in Sydney, which comprise the steakhouse chain Elements Bar & Grill, went into administration in March, putting 180 jobs in jeopardy.

Another Sydney restaurant chain, Bondi Pizza, put three of its sites into administration last month, with either a sale of restructure of the business being considered. There are 120 jobs on the line.

The news follows the recent collapse of a popular Oporto in Sydney’s Newtown, with the ATO forcing that business to either pay half a million in back taxes or shut its doors.

Late last year, arm of major Victorian catering business, Legacy Hospitality Group, went bust in October with debts in excess of $1.7 million.

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