Restaurants are bustling as hospitality recovery takes hold

If you have visited restaurants and cafes in Sydney recently, you would have noticed them bustling along at a pace that would have you thinking the COVID-19 pandemic never happened.

In fact restaurants across Sydney and Melbourne are now thriving as we move into the heart of the holiday period.

Assistant manager at Bel and Brio, Matias Munoz, says the Italian restaurant is flat out from the moment they open to closing time. 

"I think it's because they've had a really tough year and they want to celebrate. That's what the customers say to me," Mr Munoz said.

"Compared to the last year, we're doing the same numbers," Mr Munoz said. 

Mr Munoz says that even on Mondays, which are usually the restaurant’s quietest days, it is extremely busy.

In Melbourne, many local eateries are also seeing a lot more new customers enter their venues.

In Melbourne, it is more the suburban restaurants and cafes that are flourishing, with the city not yet at full capacity.

With people spending more time working from home, they are therefore eating locally. 

According to consumer data, business for suburban cafes and restaurants is booming as the CBD remains empty.

However, suburban eateries are steeling themselves for change. 

Local eateries such as Merchants Guild in South East Melbourne are bracing for a decline in business as soon as people start heading back to the office to work.

Merchants Guild manager, Sarah Ormsby, said  "I'd have to say we probably felt like one of the lucky cafes.

"At the moment we've had to put more staff on during the weekdays." 

Certainly, people have re-embraced the hospitality culture, and with numbers high recovery could be quicker than expected. 

However, a full sector recovery will still take some time. 

National Australia Bank group chief economist Alan Oster said Downtown Melbourne's share of hospitality spending has halved and it will take about a year for hospitality spending to slowly return to what it was in downtown Melbourne and Sydney.

15^th December 2020