Auckland CBD restaurants brace for mass closures due to Covid-19, staffing issues

Friday, 11 February 2022

Two level 4 lockdowns and closed borders have hit downtown Auckland and Queen St hard, and there is presently no strategy to revitalise the downtown economy.(Video September 2021)

Restaurant owners in Auckland’s CBD say they’re expecting mass closures if staffing issues, Covid-19 traffic light restrictions and isolation rules continue.

Things have gone from bad to worse for the restaurants since October, when Student Job Search data saw a significant drop – 52 per cent – in applicants for hospitality work in the city.

The national drop was only 34 per cent.

Vivace restaurant lost 80 per cent of its bookings post-red light. Co-owner Mandy Lusk feels scared going into this year and says she’s never seen the city this quiet.

That was worsened by the perception of central Auckland as “ground zero” of Covid-19 in the country, meaning the restaurant’s usual customer base was avoiding the area, according to Hotel Council Aotearoa.

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Cassia Restaurant owner Chand Sahrawat said the CBD was a ghost town, with little optimism left in the tank for this year.

She was giving restaurants in the district three to six months before most went under.

Chand Sahrawat, the co-owner of Cassia Restaurant, said Auckland CBD was a ghost town.

“Especially if you have to close your restaurant with close contacts,” she said.

“When it comes to a customer visiting and us becoming a location of interest, that will hit hard. There's no subsidy to support us, so we can't pay staff and outgoings while isolating. And if it happens more than once it's going to hurt.”

Chand has operated at 50 per cent revenue since the move to the red light.

All her corporate functions got cancelled, and she has not bothered to consistently operate at midday with such few customers coming through the door.

Meanwhile, Mandy Lusk, the co-owner of Vivace restaurant, has lost 80 per cent of bookings after moving to red light restrictions.

She said she felt scared going into this year, and she had never seen the city this quiet.

“I bumped into a regular customer at the supermarket, who told me she misses us but can't go into the city as you don’t know who you’ll walk past,” she said.

“These Covid models haven’t helped our industry. I’m worried too many places are going to fall in the CBD and when we do re-open, it’s going to be grim.”

Restaurant Association chief executive Marisa Bidois said summer trading figures had been worse than expected.

Eateries in the CBD had found it hard to hire enough staff to meet demand, she said. There had been a 15 per cent decrease in international workers in the industry, and with the universities closed, there were no students in the CBD to take up shifts.

Lusk believed most had left for Coromandel, or regions less likely to lock down.

Tony McGeorge closed his Ponsonby restuarant, Saan, earlier this month due to staffing issues, and another of his establishments, Xuxu Dumpling Bar at Britomart, will close later in February.

He is worried the same fate awaits his other two Britomart eateries, Cafe Hanoi and Ghost Street.

“We have incredible uncertainty of how we staff things and what is going to happen with the market over next six months,” he said.

“Everyone is just in survival mode – some will make it, many will not.”