More than half of restaurant owners in Auckland are "devastated" by Level 3 restrictions, with calls for more support for the struggling service industry.
A survey by the Restaurant Association shows four out of 10 restaurants are choosing to stay closed during level 3, with calls for the government subsidy to kick in immediately for industries facing significant hardship.
The association represents 2500 establishments, with 1000 of those in Auckland, and business owners spoke about how the level change was impacting them.
"We have immediately lost $25k in events plus $15k in a la carte sales. I have $9k in fixed costs per day including salaries. Yet again we have to just suck it up, it can't go on forever."
"In the CBD we are suffering. It is very hard with no workers, no tourists, no chefs. I'm doing my best to get out of it by selling my business after too much financial loss and total burn out as we have no support."
The reaction goes beyond Auckland borders.
"Level 3 means cancellations for function rooms and catering in Hamilton and the Waikato as a lot of facilitators and attendees come down from Auckland."
"Why are we going to level 3 when the community cases travelled to New Plymouth and those outside are only level 2? We are further away from the area and still get punished with a level 3 lockdown."
Restaurant Association CEO Marisa Bidois said the change of levels and lack of financial support is a "kick in the teeth" for the industry.
"We haven't been trading as normal for the last 12 months, so three days of not trading just adds to the pressure.
"The hospitality industry has received little to no targeting funding. We met with the Treasury in September to propose operational and financial assistance that would be triggered at different alert levels, but this has not been adopted."
She'd like to see funding kick in immediately for industries significantly impacted by the changes in levels, and a strategy going forward, rather than leaving businesses in limbo.
"If a world of revolving lockdowns is the best plan we have, then I implore the Government to urgently engage the sectors hardest hit by these lockdowns - hospitality, retail, services industry. Living in an abundance of caution needs to be balanced with a plan to serve those paying the heaviest price to keep us virus free."
Bidois said although food businesses could operate a click and collect service during level 3, many were choosing to stay closed.
"Through the lockdowns last year, businesses had the opportunity to trial opening in level 3, and realised that it sometimes cost more money to be open and do deliveries.
"If you're a fine dining restaurant, it's not easy to segue and pivot into doing takeaways if that's not set up as part of your core business."
As well as losing three days' takings, Bidois said there were unseen costs with changing levels such as fixed rent and reduced capacity due to physical distancing requirements.
One restaurant owner said the unexpected changes to the levels were extremely difficult.
"These sudden closures cause so much food waste. It would be great if there was some way to be compensated for it, as no wage subsidy covers this loss."
The survey showed 46 per cent of Auckland businesses were prepared to redistribute food waste to local food banks or donate as food parcels.
Bidois said the level changes have far reaching effects on the sector.
"There's a roll on effect of diner confidence. We don't see people coming out into businesses straight away and there's a really slow uptake. December is usually one of our strongest trading months and we were still down 5.9 per cent last year. Customer unease also means that even when businesses are open at level 2, customer traffic is severely diminished until confidence builds again gradually on a return to level 1."
Other restaurant owners in the survey agreed.
"We've already incurred over $40k in cancellations, yet we don't even know if we're shut past Thursday. It shows people are more skittish than before - we've even received some cancellations for some group events in March and May."
"This is possibly the nail in the coffin. We are beyond devastated as times have been very, very tough through December and January already. We're in the suburbs and our customer support base has slowly disappeared since lockdown. We don't know what to do next."