If you stopped for a meal in a regional Australia town this silly season – thank you, you’re a legend – I wouldn’t mind betting you discovered at least one pub that was strangely shut, a cafe with a “see you in January” sign in the window, or a diner getting hammered because it’s the only food place that hasn’t packed up and gone on holiday.
Welcome to the new normal in the bush, where grabbing a sandwich at a servo (made in the city and trucked out here) is too often your best bet.
It might be my nostalgia goggles, but wasn’t it the case that regional hospitality businesses along major tourist routes traded through Christmas and the new year, then headed off for the traditional “retail holiday” in February, once school’s in and credit cards are maxed out?
Wasn’t goodwill and an open door, particularly for holidaying travellers, what running a hospitality business was all about?
Rural residents were the beneficiary and, when we moved back to the bush in 2017 my husband, Richard – a former chef – happily sniffed out great places to eat.
It means we sometimes have to travel, often into neighbouring districts or across the Queensland border. Combining banking, shopping and medical appointments with a gourmet lunch is the icing on the cake of the weekdays we take off from our high-street business in the New South Wales New England region.
We tend to avoid dining out on public holidays. Richard goes grey around the gills at any reminder of the mental and physical stamina required to feed hordes of travellers. But on a 250km round trip to a fantastic restaurant – more than a week after new year – we arrived to see a closed sign, despite its social media account declaring it would be open.
Taste buds unsatisfied, we walked past three alternatives, all closed, and one fast-food franchise doing a roaring trade. Eventually a busy backstreet eatery served us a decent lunch after a long wait, giving us plenty of time to ruminate on how hospitality has changed.
We noticed the signs a few years ago when one popular rural eatery announced it would be shut from before Christmas until well past new year. The decision was explained on social media as an opportunity for the owners to spend time with family after a big year.
That’s fair enough, but it was awkward to see their increasingly desperate posts once the bleak economic landscape of February rolled around.
Country high-street proprietors are acutely aware of the impact of empty shops: when visitors sense a town is lifeless, they tend to keep driving.
So if this is a new normal for hospitality in the sticks, how’s it likely to work?
The most obvious effect is that if an eatery is open between mid-December and mid-January, look for the surcharge. Unless you’ve worked in hospo, you’ve probably forgotten that the sector’s casual workers retained maximum penalty rates while their full- and part-time colleagues got a reduction in 2017-18.
This confusion is likely to be behind the backlash against a regional eatery in Victoria that imposes a “peak season” loading. Charging an extra 10% (the cost of accommodating seasonal staff) and 20% (on public holidays) is the only way this coastal restaurant says it’s able to trade every day of the week between Boxing Day and Australia Day.
There’s no getting past the penalty rates debate in any corner of the hospitality sector, particularly while employers underpay staff.
It’s predicted we’ll find fewer regional eateries altogether, with about 10% of food businesses likely to close over the 12 months from June 2024, according to CreditorWatch’s mid-year business risk index. That data identified regional Victoria as one of the lowest-risk regions yet, as the Rural Network reported, four major Ballarat restaurants closed in 2024 alone.
The acquisition of regional hospitality venues by large investors is also reshaping the industry, as are the “mum-and-dad owners” who dodge penalty rates by working their own counters on public holidays.
A highly visible change will be an increase in fast-food outlets due to a “flurry of activity” from investors. Penalty-rate cuts were greater for all staff under the fast food award, leaving one-off hospitality businesses with higher wage bills than their franchise rivals.
The long-term outlook for the rural hospitality landscape is discernible in regions way off the tourist trail. During outback Queensland’s “summer exodus”, the running joke is that half the population ends up on the Sunshine Coast, leaving a quietude that many locals enjoy despite widespread food business closures.
Holidaying western Queenslanders are in for a rude shock if they plan to dine out at the coast, however, because hospitality businesses are struggling there, too.
There’s a blame game between hosts, diners and staff that paints the players as overworked, overly demanding or lazy. Regional business chambers could provide a bit of leadership, planning ahead and negotiating with hospitality outlets to ensure they share the burden of trading through peak periods.
But this situation only appears to be getting worse, leaving many country towns looking far more inhospitable than they deserve.
Nostalgia goggles back on, I can still see the old normal: a picnic in a bindi-filled country town park; lunch at a Golden Fleece roadhouse if we were lucky.
The good old days of esky and vacuum flask might come again. You can’t argue with the savings – just don’t complain about the service.
