Struggling Queensland restaurants facing closures
by Leon Gettler
Queensland’s restaurant industry facing high penalty rates, falling consumer spending and high rents could be hit by a spate of closures.
Many of the Sunshine state’s eateries are struggling to turn a profit.
The problem is the industry is growing at a rate of knots.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were more than 7000 cafes, restaurants, pubs, taverns and bars operating across Queensland, with a further 4524 takeaways as of June 2014.
Just in Brisbane alone, 427 new food business permits for cafes and restaurants were issued. There were also another 161 permits issued for takeaways, and 36 more for mobile food trucks. Brisbane City Council records show that food operators took over 736 food businesses in the same period.
Restaurant and Catering Australia chief John Hart says these sorts of figures are just not sustainable, not when 20 per cent of restaurants, bars and take away food places shut their doors every year.
“The openings are probably at a higher rate than the growth in the demand,” Mr Hart told the Courier Mail.
Rapidly increasing wages and rents were part of the problem.
The real killer was penalty rates given that 62 per cent of the eateries business is done on weekends when workers are raking in extra.
“About 45 per cent of restaurants’ cost base is labour, and labour has been growing at about 12.5 per cent per annum. It’s not sustainable and it’s certainly not sustainable when the average spend is going down,” Mr Hart said.
But another issue he said was changes in consumer spend on eating out.
A decade ago, Australians were eating out twice a week, now it’s 3.6 times a week. But while they are going out more often, they’re spending less.
“People are eating less courses — sharing entrees and desserts — so basically the industry is serving more people for less money,” he said.
Mr Hart said many of the eateries will have to change the way they operate to stay in business. Perhaps we will see more multiple sittings and places introducing counter service instead of table service to cut labour costs.
8th March 2016
