By Taylah Eastwell
Olinda and Mt Dandenong shopkeepers have had a tumultuous start to 2021, plagued by two extended “snap” lockdowns and a devastating storm resulting in lengthy mountain road closures.
Just as roads into the village townships reopened almost a month after the 9 June storms, the state entered yet another lockdown, with businesses who were gearing up to reopen instead turning the shop sign to ‘closed’ once again.
This time around, the mood has shifted. The weight of the pandemic has businesses on the brink.
Owners of Dudley’s Restaurant in Olinda and King Henry’s in Sassafras, Ross and Mary Miller, said lockdown 5.0 has them “going backwards now”.
“This time it’s starting to get a lot harder. We are still waiting on insurance money, waiting on government money, lots of different things are making it more difficult this time around,” Ross said.
After losing food and being forced to close following the superstorm, the popular Hills restaurant has had a tough few months.
Business minister Martin Pakula announced on Wednesday 21 July that 90,000 businesses would be eligible for new grants. Eligible hospitality venues will soon receive $4,200 on top of $3,000 announced at the beginning of the lockdown.
“The thing is, the government support really doesn’t cover our outgoings, it pretty much just covers rent. We’ve still got wages and one of the biggest challenges is we put a lot of people on to permanent part-time and full-time roles and committed them to training programs,” Ross said.
While the pair are passionate about supporting local workers, the costs of paying staff when income isn’t being generated is taking its toll.
“The hardest thing is our casual staff. They are doing it hard emotionally,” Ross said.
The restaurant is open for take-away, which Mary and Ross said is “not paying it’s way, but at least it’s supporting the community”.
“During the major lockdown people had JobKeeper so they would still get takeaway, this time around everyone is pulling in the purse strings,” Mary said.
“The main thing we would like to see is some rental assistance. We keep going to our landlords but it’s embarrassing after the fourth time,” Ross said.
“The government says it is giving money to help businesses come out the other side, but that money goes to Energy Australia, our landlord, rates, insurance and all these other things we have to pay. We have to stand down our staff when we are not operating, and they still have rent to pay of their own. There is a few feeling down in the dumps who just want to be back working so they can be social and talk to somebody,” he said.
As for Mary and Ross, they are helping each other through.
“It’s a massive challenge and we are a big family with both our businesses and all the people we employ. It just seems like one thing after another with the storms, lockdown, roads closed, it’s quite draining,” Ross said.
Mary said King Henry’s had just been decorated with “beautiful” Christmas in July decorations when lockdown struck.
“Believe it or not it takes a lot of effort to change a menu and decorate a venue, and now of course we have missed half of July due to lockdown. The same happened last year, they keep taking Christmas off us. We are going to continue Christmas in July into August because I’m not taking it down again,” Mary said.
Mt Dandenong Tourist Road eatery, Montage Cafe, is also feeling the pinch.
Owner Remco said “every lockdown it gets progressively worse as far as trade is concerned”.
“It’s getting a bit harder to cope with it all mentally and financially, not just for us owners but for staff as well because we have to keep them ticking over,” Remco said.
Remco said it is particularly hard for staff this time around without JobKeeper, with workers only eligible for payments if they have a certain amount of hours reduced.
“If you lose the job you’ve got you’ve got to use up what you’ve already saved before you are eligible for Centrelink, which is quite depressing,” he said.
According to Remco, the hardest part about lockdown is “everything being up in the air” and not knowing when we might be let out.
“It’s hard to plan around. We can’t be stocking up in hopes of opening on the trade we’ve got at the moment,” he said.
“Takeaway is all we have at the moment and what I’m hearing from other businesses that you wouldn’t normally associate as having takeaway is that it is getting progressively worse. Not many people get a chicken parmigiana as take away, people still think to get pizza or chinese and don’t think of us restaurants and cafes.
“We are a bit lucky because we are near IGA and people might come in and grab a coffee or a muffin, but that’s about it,” he said.
“We are bleeding, but we are trying to slow the bleed,” Remco said.
