Coronavirus: ‘Easing all very good but restaurant numbers don’t add up’

Chef Shane Delia says seating rules ­make it impossible to reopen his marquee restaurant Maha next month.

Restaurateur Shane Delia in Melbourne on Monday. Picture: Paul Jeffers

Renowned chef Shane Delia has no quibble with Daniel Andrews’ cautious timetable to ease restrictions, but says seating rules ­imposed by the Premier make it impossible to reopen his marquee restaurant Maha and three ­smaller venues next month.

“Under the restrictions it just won’t be financially viable,” he said. “To have just 20 people inside a 130-seat restaurant like Maha is not going to work. You still need a sommelier, a restaurant manager, a host, bar staff, chefs. You can’t sustain their wages with such limited income. It’s not anything against the government. It just doesn’t work for me on the numbers. I’m not a charity.”

Mr Andrews on Sunday eased a range of restrictions on metropolitan Melbourne. Hospitality ­venues will be permitted to have a maximum of 20 diners inside and 50 outside from November 2 on the current timetable, provided there is no more than 10 in any one room.

More generous arrangements apply in regional Victoria, with up to 50 patrons inside venues and 70 outside.

Restaurateur Guy Grossi is going to give reopening a crack even though there will be fewer diners at his Collins Street institution Grossi Florentino than during the brief easing of restrictions earlier in the year.

He accepts it will have to run at a loss in the near term, but feels he has to get back in the game. It’s what he does.

“We are going to reopen ­regardless,” Mr Grossi said. “Whether there are enough patrons or not, I have to get going. I have to get my staff back to work. There’s a lot of training and rehiring to do.”

Both are emotional about how the lockdown has affected their businesses, and the city.

“I really just want to open up,” Mr Delia said. “Maha Bar is almost brand new. I was there the other day and it brought a tear to my eye thinking about the people who have worked so hard with me on it.”

Mr Grossi said it had been a ­financially and emotionally devastating time for many city businesses and the suppliers who relied on them.

“To see this city that my parents loved so much and I love so much being in the state it has been in for most of this year has been absolutely emotionally crippling,” he said.

Mr Grossi said he had felt let down by the government’s timetable for the easing of restrictions, and anxious that it didn’t have a definite end date.

Restaurants could safely handle more customers, he said, but the government now had to prove it could manage small coronavirus outbreaks to allow the city to return to COVID normal.

“We’ve got our standards in place. We can do the correct cleaning, the correct customer ­recording, have our teams wear masks and ensure they don’t work if they are sick.

“But the government needs to clarify it has contact tracing right. It needs to show us there will be the proper contact tracing in place so if something does happen it can be quickly knocked on the head.”