While the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite for all Australians, the local hospitality scene is particularly feeling the crunch. It's forcing restaurants and cafes across the country to close, unable to survive challenging financial and labour conditions. With high inflation continuing experts don't expect relief any time soon.
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00:00Restaurant owner Damien Brabender has been serving Canberra's food scene for eight years.
00:07We've lost those two tables now, we're going to have to at least cancel one section later.
00:11But he says the industry has become unviable.
00:14They already are harder than the COVID times.
00:17The next 12 months is going to be disastrous.
00:20The hospitality sector is being served blow after blow, rising costs, staff shortages
00:26and a drop in customer spending.
00:28At the moment it's 99% of it's just horrifically sad news.
00:32People closing, people downsizing, people considering pulling the pin, bankruptcies
00:37have become kind of the buzzword in hospitality at the moment for a lot of people.
00:42According to the latest Credit to Watch report, hospitality businesses are predicted to have
00:47the highest closure rates of all sectors, with one in 11 expected to fail in the next
00:5212 months alone.
00:54Miss Vans is the latest local restaurant to collapse, falling victim to challenging
00:59financial and labour conditions being felt across the industry.
01:03And it's unlikely to get easier any time soon.
01:06Inflation is remaining high, we do expect that in ACT that there will be more closures
01:12coming forward before we see the industry recover.
01:17After closing his restaurant XO, Anand Pumar has chosen to take on these challenges the
01:23best way he knows how.
01:24The whole idea of pivoting from a restaurant to a simpler offering I think is the resources
01:32and just working with the resources that I have but still do what I can do which is cooking
01:39and feeding people's tummy.
01:42The cost of living crisis, continuing to bite.