‘Baseless’ Covid compliance accusations leave a bad taste for fledgling Townsville restaurant

A Townsville business has been left ‘taken aback’ after being investigated for Covid compliance following an anonymous tip-off.

A BITTER patron has become the namesake for a cocktail called the Sour Mule at a local restaurant following a brush with police over a fake claim they’d been dodging Covid rules.

Brothers and owners of Yayo’s Restaurant Jesse and Tyrone Serrell were left stunned when police showed up during their busy lunch rush on Monday.

Jesse told the Bulletin the claims his business hadn’t been observing the guidelines around Covid compliance were completely baseless.

“We were really taken aback by it when the police showed up, we try to be the best we can be and to follow all the mandates,” Mr Serrell said.

“It wasn’t good, to have someone accuse us like that, for no particular reason at all, there was really no basis or substance to it.”

Yayo's Greek Restaurant co owner Jesse Serrell making The Sour Mule cocktail. Picture: Shae Beplate.

Mr Serrell said the restaurant first became aware they might be scrutinised after a Facebook comment criticised them for not following the rules.
“Someone on Facebook commented and said they’d seen our posts and that we hadn’t been following the mandates and that we’d been allowing unvaccinated patrons into our venue.
“It was pretty strange, because we try to just focus on the business on the social media side of things and not really bring Covid-related stuff into it.

“We try to contact our customers privately when they talk to us about Covid and stuff like that. We’d never had any interactions with them before, [the comments] just started up at two o’clock in the morning.”

Mr Serrell said having police officers show up during their lunch service was ‘confronting’ for both the staff and customers.

“They said they’d had an anonymous call. It was right in the middle of the lunch rush on a public holiday.
“We had a lot of tables that were full and the police were checking vaccination status. All our staff are vaccinated, our codes are all in line and everything gets checked by staff.”

Following the brush with the law, the brothers came up with a tongue in cheek way to get past it, creating The Sour Mule cocktail put on the menu, ‘inspired’ by the saga.

On announcing the drink on social media the restaurant said it was made “with just enough tang to scrunch your face up”.

Yayo's Greek Restaurant co owner Jesse Serrell with The Sour Mule cocktail. Picture: Shae Beplate.

“Our head bartender makes a number of good cocktails for us, we put a bit of a cheeky twist on it and we try to have a little bit of fun with it,” Mr Serrell said.

Townsville District Chief Superintendent Craig Hanlon said police appreciated the support of the community in helping officers in carrying out Covid checks.

“This support includes people contacting police about alleged breaches of CHO directions,” Superintendent Hanlon said.

“On all occasions inquiries are undertaken into these matters and appropriate action taken.”

While police declined to comment on whether there would be any punitive action against Covid tip-offs called in bad faith, the Yayo restaurant has already turned the matter into motivation.

Originally published as ‘Baseless’ Covid compliance accusations leave a bad taste for fledgling Townsville restaurant