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A few years ago, a night out on the town often included dinner at a high-end restaurant. Customers expected to be turned away if they didn’t have reservations, and even those that did sometimes had to wait for their turn to dine in these exclusive restaurants. No one blinked at the high prices. Today, it’s a different story. These restaurants that were once bustling with activity are struggling to keep their doors open.
The recent recession has made quite a few people change their lifestyles. Top-end restaurants, as well as the more moderately priced restaurants, are one of the first luxuries to go when money gets tight. Money-conscious diners soon realise that eating meals at home or at less costly restaurants can save them extraordinary amounts of cash. Even consumers in good financial positions are being more cautious with their money, and expensive restaurants no longer fit into their plans.
Melbourne is one of Australia’s hardest hit areas for upscale restaurants in. Many restaurants in this city have taken a cut in their prices to attract customers and have let some of their staff go. Some have become quite creative with their lunch and dinner specials, which is something that was unheard of several years ago. The days of attracting customers merely by reputation are gone.
The list of crumbling dining businesses continues to grow. Seagrass, one of Southbank’s finest seafood restaurants, several Docklands eateries, and the Surf Coast’s Acquum and Bellbrae Harvest restaurants have succumbed to the economic pressures. The Crown Casino’s Bistro Guillaume is still in business, but struggles daily.
Reports of Bistro Guillaume losing $100,000 monthly have surfaced lately, but owner Guillaume Brahimi denies the estimates. The award-winning Bistro Guillaume has seen a twenty per cent decline in business recently, but Brahimi insists that the bistro is surviving the financial downturn. There has been speculation in the restaurant industry about whether this celebrated swank restaurant will be able to weather the current economic storm.
Other upscale restaurants across Australia have similar stories. The reason for the struggles and sometimes demise of these luxury dining establishments are the same as any other business: they thought the financial good times would last forever and their debt load was more than they could handle when times became rough. Consumers are becoming more frugal whether they are in dire financial situations or worried that they may soon be, and expensive restaurants just aren’t on the list of “must haves” anymore.
It is a shame that these restaurants that once served their exquisite fare to appreciative diners are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy or have already closed their elaborate doors. But the owners and investors are learning the same difficult financial lessons as the rest of us: don’t take on large amounts of debt, no matter how good the economy looks, spend your money carefully, and always be prepared for the worst.
It will be interesting to see if the remaining top-end restaurants will be able to recover enough to stay in business. In today’s economic situation, even lunch and dinner specials and free appetizers won’t entice many of us to eat out. We’d rather save our money for life’s essential items. Many of us have decided that eating out doesn’t have to mean dressing up in our finest clothes and being catered to by an attentive staff. We’re just as happy and have just as much fun going to an inexpensive restaurant and pocketing the change.
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