Auckland restaurant Ima Cuisine: 'Help us hold on' through Omicron

Yael Shochat makes what some believe are the best hot cross buns in the country and counts Gordon Ramsay among her customers – of which she used to seat 100 at any one time over the course of a dinner service.

But yesterday, on a hot afternoon in the peak of Auckland's summer, the owner of Ima Cuisine restaurant in Auckland's CBD wasn't preparing for the rush of hungry punters to her tables, she was locking the doors and sticking a sign in the window.

It read: "Dear customers, Sadly we had to keep our doors shut tonight due to lack of bookings. CBD restaurants are suffering. Please support us. Love Ima Team [sic]."

A sign of the times: A note in Ima Cuisine's front window telling customers why the restaurant will be closed for the night. Photo / Instagram

Speaking to the Herald, exasperation in her voice, Shochat shares that she'd had just two bookings and two walk-ins to her Middle Eastern restaurant. "I just can't do that. I can't do that in food waste. I can't do that in salaries. I just can't do that."

Shochat's ordinarily vibrant, bustling restaurant sits in the curl of the city's Fort St, along from famed ice cream restaurant Giapo and Mediterranean stalwart, Vivace. It's a strip that, on any given day of the week, used to see a colourful fusion of suits out for lunch, tourists meandering its shops and shared spaces, and locals who had come into the city for an event and often stayed for a meal.

Yael Shochat and her famous hot cross buns are usually a sell out at Easter time. Photo / Michael Craig

But as the country continues to battle Covid-19, now grappling with rising Omicron cases, Shochat says all of that's gone. "The city is dead".

Mandy Lusk, co-owner of Vivace, says they cleared the table of their last customer at 7.45pm last night. "That's the earliest in 30 years. And there was no one around, no cars and no people.

"We're ring-fenced by three MIQ hotels and many of the office towers have multinational firms in them. The problem we have there is many have a directive that whatever country they're in, if the country's at its highest alert level, they're not allowed to work from the office.

"It's just empty. We've actually had an okay lunch but we knew every face in the restaurant. They were all there to support us."

Yael Shochat shares her current view of Fort St in Auckland's CBD, ordinarily a vibrant, bustling place. Photo / Supplied

Shochat says many office workers haven't been in at all this year. Things are at a breaking point and the Government's resurgence subsidy isn't going to cut it, she says.

"I am [at a breaking point] and I know a lot of others are. I don't know what we're going to do. It's felt like this from the minute we went to red [light setting]. It's unbelievably bad.

"There are no events, no shows, no festivals. Everything's been cancelled. It is so quiet. Usually in the afternoon there's a line of traffic from Shortland St to Gore St. Yesterday there was no one. It was like a Sunday. There was not one car.

"We've been offered this subsidy for resurgence but they want us to compare stage two to red light. Red light has been bad in the city. January is never great. There are two long weekends in a row, people are still on holiday and, this year, everyone left Auckland because they'd been locked up for so long.

"We were already down and now we're supposed to compare a period that's always down around 30 per cent. I was 50 per cent down on that 30 per cent," she says, adding that costs across the board are up too.

"Everything we use is up. Every item of food has gone up. Salaries are up."

That's set against figures from the Restaurant Association showing hospitality businesses are reporting a 30 per cent decrease in year-on-year revenues. This is on top of a 30 per cent revenue reduction year on year in 2021. A survey conducted by the association found in the last week of January 55 per cent of 464 respondents have experienced significant reductions in revenues as a result of the Omicron outbreak.

While Shochat has been lucky with staff so far, it's not the case for others. Last year saw restaurateurs Sid and Chand Sahrawat, who own Cassia, Sidart and the French Cafe, close for a time due to staff shortages. And Prego restaurant and Longroom, both on Ponsonby Rd, are the latest to close temporarily due to staffing issues.

"Everyone was so short-staffed, says Shochatl

"But if others are closing down there may be staff available. I don't know. I don't know what it's going to look like in a month."

The road ahead feels bleak, but Shochat is really trying to hold on.

Asked how people can help Ima and other restaurants, she says: "Order takeaways. Buy vouchers. If you really like a restaurant, if you have a connection to a restaurant, try and keep it alive. We're an important part of society where people come to celebrate, enjoy themselves.

"Think about where you're choosing to eat out as well. Those owner-operator restaurants that are slogging their guts out, working day and night, have their houses mortgaged and they care for their staff, their restaurant is their life ... I'm not going to close because I'm losing money. I'm going to fight to the last breath.

"It's not long before we're hopefully over this, this last hurdle, and you want to see them on the other side.

"Let's get through this together, help us hold on."

Restaurant Association CEO Marisa Bidois says while the Covid-19 red traffic light setting is "still a green light for diners, sadly this outbreak is having an adverse effect on patronage.

"Given the continued fall in patronage, we really need people to understand that dining out is safe.

"The message from the industry is clear. Continue to dine out."

Bidois also notes: "Our businesses have some of the most rigorous operating settings out there with vaccination mandates for both staff and diners as well as mask mandates and distancing between tables when customers are dining in.

"Many of our businesses spent extended periods of time closed last year so we really need people to get the message out there that hospitality is 100 per cent open for business and safe, so long as everyone follows the guidelines."

While Shochat's note on the door might have helped a little with bookings up for the evening, it's going to take more than that, she says. "That's just for tonight, a little jump. It's not going to save me. It's quiet again for bookings tomorrow night."

Dine out to help out

The Restaurant Association is calling on Kiwis to "dine out to help out".

An online portal has been set up at dineouthelpout.co.nz where hospitality businesses can download education resources for their establishments and diners can check out guidelines for safe dining during the red traffic light setting.