Lis Newnham, the Royal Hotel owner in Corowa, said that dining out was not deemed essential, and losing patrons from the other side of the border was tough.
“We have already lost many our patron tradies that come in for happy hour from Wahgunyah. I have also lost a handful of regular customers who come over and have dinner and drinks, and I take them home in the courtesy bus,” Lis told The Free Press.
The closing of the NSW border was another blow for Ms Newnham, who was starting to see consistent numbers each week since the easing of restrictions last month.
The new rules allow venues to operate without capacity limits other than accommodating one person per four square metres.
“It’s been slow but consistent. We still can’t have live music or anything like that because of the size of the venue. We have the beer garden, but it’s too cold for that at the moment,” Ms Newnham said.
“We are still struggling. Only full-time staff on JobKeeper are still working. Everyone is working fewer hours.”
While the hotel has been reaching dinner service capacity each week, Ms Newnham decided to reduce her lunch trade.
“We closed our lunch services on Wednesdays and Thursdays because we could not justify being open. We take into account the fact that it is winter, but there are definitely fewer people around than usual. I don’t mind being closed on those days, though, because our local cafes can get that business.”
Before the border closure, Ms Newnham found herself rejecting people in Melbourne wanting to book functions at the hotel.
“We had an influx of phone calls from Melbourne. People wanted to escape and have their functions up here,” Ms Newnham said.
“While it hurt me to say no because I needed the business, I did not need the repercussions of my staff and the community getting sick. When the border closed, it saved me from having to reject them.”
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