Bella Vista Hotel

How pubs & bars are pivoting to survive COVID-19

April 2, 2020
By Alana House

Hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers were stood down when pubs and bars closed as part of the coronavirus shutdown. But venues are finding creative ways to survive COVID-19 and keep staff working.

W Short Hotels has converted its pubs across NSW into convenience stores to weather the crisis. Owner Marty Short, is selling local produce and essential supplies to locals who are battling panic buying shortages.

W Short Hotels

Short’s pubs – The Tudor Hotel in Redfern (above), The Royal Leichhardt, Seabreeze Beach Hotel at South West Rocks and the Toormina Hotel in Coffs Harbour – have been transformed into stores, with hand sanitiser stations and social distancing markers on the floor.

Short told nine.com.au: “I thought, I can’t sell counter meals, can’t sell a draught beer, can’t pour somebody a vino, what am I going to do?

“I’m here to serve our community and we need them to help us stay here.”

Momento Hospitality has turned the warehouse behind the Bella Vista Hotel in Sydney’s north-west into a contactless, drive-through shop – called Essentials Express at Bella (pictured main) – stocking alcohol (including a range of signature cocktails), fresh produce, prepared meals and groceries.

The initiative has kept more than a dozen staff employed, plus helped move through stock for suppliers.

The Toxteth Hotel in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe is selling kegs of beer and espresso martinis to nearby residents to “help through the home isolation”.

Golden Gully cooking class

In addition to alcohol delivery and takeaway, The Golden Gully Bar is offering online mixology and cooking classes.

Through its ‘Virtual Gully’ website, you can pay for a one-hour mixology or cooking class where you can learn how to make a cocktail or meal at home.

BrewDog

BrewDog’s Brisbane pub, TapDog, is preparing to launch a virtual bar, with news, quizzes, music and community. Registration is going live soon following a successful launch at BrewDog’s UK venues, which attracted 1000 punters.

Additionally, DogTap is also now on UberEATS for food delivery and has introduced a drive-thru service.

Archie Rose hand sanitiser

The Archie Rose production team has reallocated its spirits production capacity to hand sanitiser in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The distillery’s production efforts are intended to bolster supplies nationwide, as well as maintain the employment of as many of the company’s 20 plus hospitality team as possible following the forced shutdown of all bars.

Four Pillars has started selling a production run of 20,000 litres of two hand sanitiser products: one called Take Care, sold in bulk to health professionals, the other called Heads, Tails & Clean Hands, an aromatic, gin-scented product aimed at consumers.

“By doing this, by diverting a fair bit of our production away from gin to hand sanitiser, we’ve been able to keep nearly 30 people employed, on the bottling line, packing boxes,” head distiller Cameron McKenzie told the Australian Financial Review.

Bars offer cocktail delivery

An array of bars throughout Australia are offering home delivery of cocktails as a strategy to survive COVID-19 and keep their customers sated.

The Everleigh

For example, award-winning bartender Matt Bax at Bar Americano in Melbourne is offering Americanos, Brooklyns, Negronis, specialised glassware and more; while fellow Melburnian The Everleigh is offering freshly shaken cocktails, home delivered within an hour.

Rude Boy Hobart

And bar patrons in Hobart can get their favourite Rude Boy fried chicken and cocktails delivered to their door.

Support for bartenders & musicians

Spirits Platform has stepped up to lend a hand to some of the 689,800 out of work in the hospitality industry due to COVID-19. Local bartenders who have recently lost their jobs have been asked to create simple cocktail video tutorials called ‘Home Five O’Clock-tails’.

Spirits Platform cocktails

The company’s brand ambassadors – Mark Hickey, Danilo Migliorini, Andy Buntine, Luke Hanzlicek and Josh O’Brien – will recruit 100 Australian bartenders from around the country that are currently out of work, and ask them to submit their cocktail tutorial videos to Spirits Platform.

Bartenders will be paid $250 for their approved video submission, which will be shared and promoted on the company’s Simply Cocktails Facebook page and on the bartender’s personal social channels.

This initiative allows consumers, most of whom are home-bound to try their hand at making some of their favourite cocktails they would normally enjoy in a bar. “Home Five O’Clock-tails” will see 100 cocktail ‘how to’ videos posted every weekday at 5pm over 100 days.

Meanwhile, Brad Buckley and Debi Martin have created the Pub With no Fear, a new digital hub for entertainment during the time of social isolation.

The Facebook group is for musicians to perform online. Artists perform live and they have a Paypal link on the screen so people can tip them.

New mission to support Australia’s hospitality sector

The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), launched the campaign Keep Our Venues Alive (KOVA) last month, seeking to support businesses in the hospitality sector and help them survive COVID-19.

Chair of the Night Time Industries Association Michael Rodrigues said: “It is clear that following the Government’s physical distancing measures, many businesses in the hospitality sector were on the verge of collapse and mass staff redundancies were becoming increasingly common.”

The NTIA was able to highlight to the Government the plight of the independent hospitality sector by obtaining a petition that attracted more than 15,000 signatures.

KOVA is continuing to work with the government to advocate for the sector and better inform policy decisions and also to harness the power of the industry into a force for good, cultivating new relationships between stakeholders and facilitating opportunities for innovation and creative approaches that will improve sector output and resilience in the medium to long term.

More information can be found at www.keepourvenuesalive.com

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