More than half of Melbourne's restaurants and cafes have shut and the city council is being flooded with requests for small business grants as firms try to reinvent themselves to survive the coronavirus crisis.
The city has changed as Melburnians heed warnings to stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, with pedestrian numbers at the Bourke Street Mall down by 86 per cent compared to the yearly average.
Take it away: Lekker head chef Rob Kabboord, Sunda head chef Khanh Nguyen and the Windsor Hotel’s head pastry chef Anna Polly Trinh.Credit:Simon Schluter
This has forced many of the city's eateries to close or modify their businesses to offer takeaway food, coffee or groceries.
Melbourne City Council officers surveyed 2584 of the 4036 registered eateries in the municipality to understand the virus' impact, finding 1382 – or 53 per cent of respondents – had closed.
Almost one-third have been modified, while 2 per cent or 61 businesses look unlikely to reopen.
Lord mayor Sally Capp said the change to the city was unprecedented.
"These businesses haven't just been the blood, sweat and tears behind a record economy … but they've also been the vibrancy, the culture, the identity, the differentiation of us as a city," she said.
"And so we've just got to keep trying to do as many things as we can."
The council announced $500,000 in small business grants, $1 million for training and support and $2 million in arts grants last month as part of a $10 million stimulus package.
It has received thousands of applications, with the recipients to be announced next week.
"We've been massively oversubscribed for both," Cr Capp said.
More than 80 per cent of Melbourne's 16,500 businesses are small, with many of them devastated in the pandemic.
Cr Capp hoped a virtual business support summit the council is holding on Thursday, with more than 500 registrations, would help to identify what further support was needed, including the possibility of further grants.
"We are very focused on the fact that we need to help businesses sustain themselves during this survival time, and then be well prepared to also support them when we get into the revival time," she said.
Cr Capp said, like many other Melburnians, she was using takeaways to create a sense of occasion.
"Takeaway has a whole different connotation during lockdown," she said. "I never would have thought of having takeaway from [city restaurant] Di Stasio, for example, but that's what we'll be doing on Friday night for a special family dinner as a treat."
Fine-dining Punch Lane restaurant Sunda is cooking up its famous staff meals as takeaway from the kitchens at the famous five-star Windsor Hotel, which opened as the Grand Hotel in 1884.
Chef Khanh Nguyen said staff were creating produce boxes and food packs with instructions for customers to cook at home.
"I'm extremely proud to still be open," he said. "I know that we can … shut until things get better, but we have staff that are on visas who don't get the government benefits and we have to support them the most we can because, obviously, they're in a hard time as well."
The council's foot traffic sensors counted just 349 people passing Bourke Street Mall between midday and 1pm on Wednesday, down from the 2502 average for a typical day over the past year.
The business support summit will be live-streamed between 10am and 12.30pm on Thursday.
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