Coronavirus: Plan keeps ALP faction’s fave diner Otis Dining Hall open

Otis Dining Hall owner Damian Brabender is over the moon he will get to keep his employees because of the PM’s wage subsidy.

‘This is the good news’: Otis Dining Hall owner Damian Brabender at his restaurant in Canberra on Monday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Just six weeks ago, the Otis Dining Hall in Canberra gained national attention as the meeting place of a new pro-coal ginger group within Labor led by right-wing heavyweights Don Farrell and Joel Fitzgibbon.

Fast-forward to this week and restaurant owner Damian Brabender feared he would be forced to tell his 12 staff they no longer had a job because he could not afford to pay them while it was closed.

He is over the moon he will get to keep on his part-time and full-time employees because of Scott Morrison’s decision to pay workers $1500 a fortnight during the coronavirus crisis.

“It is a fantastic feeling to know I am able to call my staff and say to them, ‘This is the good news. This is what is going to happen. Keep your annual leave there, keep that in your back pocket for now, plan that family holiday still’,” Mr Brabender said.

“They would have to have been stood down while the restaurant was closed. We would have been paying the staff as long as possible. They are the most important asset to the business.

“They would have been looked after before anything or anyone else, but I don’t believe that any restaurant has enough money in reserve to pay six months of wages.”

The seven casuals he employs do not qualify for the payment because they have worked at Otis for less than 12 months. They will be offered jobs when the restaurant reopens.

The Otis Group of about 30 Labor MPs was named after Mr Brabender’s restaurant and is frequented by MPs including Senator Farrell, whose wine made in his boutique South Australian winery is on the menu.

The entire Labor Right faction hosted left-wing leader Anthony Albanese at Otis for an end-of-year dinner in December.

Mr Brabender, who opened Otis three-and-a-half years ago, said the restaurant would remain completely closed during the enforced shutdown because it was not suited to the takeaway market.

Instead, staff are going to be upskilled and work on planning special events for when the restaurant reopens.

“The most valuable thing we have now is free time that we can use to focus on staff and upskill,” Mr Brabender said.

“If you look towards Sydney, towards Melbourne, other parts of Australia, fine-dining restaurants can’t really do takeaway food. It is the experience that everyone is paying for.”

He has also launched a website to sell vouchers to events at the restaurant for when it eventually reopens.

“That is one thing that I am really focused on myself, not focusing on today, not focusing on tomorrow, not focusing on how hard it is. But focusing on how good it is going to be when it reopens,” Mr Brabender said.

“So what we are doing is we are selling pay-it-forward gift vouchers, we are selling tickets to events that don’t even have dates on them yet.

“We are planning a post-COVID party. It is an event that doesn’t have a date yet. It will be a stand-up cocktail event, the first time people get to go out of the house. They get to put on their nice clothes and go out of the house and have a real celebration.”