Cairns Waterfront Dining venture to create go-to “foodie hub”
A number of well know restaurants in Cairns are uniting to create the Cairns Waterfront Dining venture. The group is hoping to attract more diners to the area and help businesses get back on track post COVID by marketing the waterfront strip as a go-to “foodie hub” and the premier destination for fine food.
Joining forces in the venture are Dundee’s on the Waterfront, Ochre Restaurant, Boatshed, Blu Marlin Bistro and Ollie’s Italian Steakhouse.
Ollie’s Italian Steakhouse operations manager, Leith Wilson said the first event for the strip will be a progressive dinner to be held on 24 June.
“We really wanted to make this event niche and small to give our guests an amazing experience,” she said.
“And then from there we plan to rollout events similar to this, maybe every month or every quarter but it will depend on the demand.”
Ms Wilson said even though there are challenges, the group was set on making the best of the situation.
“We have got a fantastic offering down here, we have got Dundees that has been in business for 30 years, (and) Ochre is an award-winning restaurant. Everyone has worked their arses off down here,” she said.
Manager of Dundee’s On the Waterfront, Jacob Lowe said he was optimistic new events would help bring customers through the doors. The group is also trying to attract staff back to the area to combat the shortage of hospitality workers, with the Jobs in Paradise scheme yet to have an impact.
“I don’t think there is much clarity behind the scheme, I have got HR people trying to figure out how to claim these (employees) and how it works,” Lowe said.
“We have got a pretty big operation and it takes a lot of people to keep the ship sailing,” he said.
“We used to get 20 or 30 resumes a week dropped off and now we get zero. You actually have to go out there and say you are looking for staff on every backpacker job page on Facebook, Gumtree and we have even started to advertise (jobs) down south, trying to sell the north Queensland dream.”
Despite the shortage, the Cairns Waterfront Dining venture was formed to make the most of a challenging situation.
“COVID has had an affect but we are not going to let that stop us. We are going to team together to put this dining strip at the forefront of locals and tourists’ minds.”
Irit Jackson, 22nd June 2021
