The Northern Territory is preparing to become the only place in Australia you can grab a parmy and a schooner at a bar, with pubs reopening on Friday.
From midday on Friday, NT licensed venues are allowed to reopen. NT is the first jurisdiction to ease COVID-19 restrictions for pubs and bars.
“The Territory is the safest place in the country and this Friday we are getting back to business,” Chief Minister Michael Gunner said.
“We had to ask a lot of businesses to shut down and now they’re getting ready to reopen. My challenge to all Territorians is to get out and support those local businesses.
“They need you to buy from them. Get a beer and a parmy, that’s the order.”
Beer trucks started heading to the Northern Territory last week to prepare for pubs reopening after COVID-19 shutdown.
“There’s a beer keg convoy rolling up the Stuart Highway with 175,000 litres of the good stuff, but what excites me most is the jobs coming back online,” Gunner said.
Hospitality NT figures show 1500 jobs will return once Stage 2 restrictions are eased.
Pubs, cafes and restaurants must maintain social distancing rules of 1.5 metres, serve alcohol with food and ensure no one remains at the venue for longer than two hours.
The NT has not imposed a strict quota on how many people can be inside a pub or bar, but businesses need to submit a coronavirus safety plan to the NT Government.
“Eight hundred and thirty four businesses have lodged a plan with us already to have a COVID-19 safe workplace… I expect we’ll see quite a few more before Friday,” Gunner said.
Irish pub Shenanigans has been inundated with bookings since the pubs reopening announcement.
“Last week we announced we were opening and that we were taking bookings and Shenanigans had 100 bookings within an hour,” Marketing Manager Carly Balding told 9News.
Meanwhile, Monsoons is employing ‘social distancing marshals’ and adopting an order and pay contactless system from the table.
David Robinson (above), who owns Snapper Rocks and Hot Tamale (pictured main), has spread out the tables in his restaurants and installed two hand sanitation stations in each venue.
“We are so excited to be serving customers again, we miss the interaction, we miss our guests,” he told the Australian Financial Review.
“It’s going to be a long, hard slog, but I’m cautiously optimistic we’ll pull through.”
Hotel Darwin staff have been working on the venue to make sure it’s ready.
Owner Penny Phillips told NT News: “It’s kind of like that really surreal feeling we had when we were closing, but it’s a really good feeling.
“All our outdoor furniture has been revarnished and it’s looking brand new again and the whole venue has been cleaned which took us a while to do that. We’ve scrubbed from top to bottom.”
