Our cities’ souls are being eroded with every hospitality closure – Editorial

SPQR was one of Auckland's most well-known restaurants to close to patrons recently. Photo / Ella Wilks

Editorial

THREE KEY FACTS

• Many of Auckland and Wellington’s most well-known restaurants have closed in recent years during tough economic times.
• New Zealand’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.7% in the December 2024 quarter.
• Inbound tourism operators expect visitor numbers to recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2027.

Many of Auckland and Wellington’s most beloved restaurants have closed over the last year or two – eroding parts of each cities’ souls.

Hospitality has always been a boom and bust industry with restaurants failing and launching in equal volumes. But the concern now is the downs have become more frequent and consistent.

Well-known establishments like Pilkingtons, SPQR and the Grove have all closed recently in Auckland.

In the capital, restaurants Concord, Mable’s, Olive, and the Hudson have stopped serving, with their owners citing numerous factors.

Wellington restaurateur Asher Boote shut the doors on Daisy’s in Thorndon last night and suggested there is “an inconvenient truth”, which is that restaurants are severely under-priced.

“We can’t forget that restaurants are a luxury,” he said.

The current downtrend started with Covid and the lockdowns, then there was the dip in tourist numbers followed by a lengthy economic slump.

All these factors have combined and led to people’s habits changing.

No longer are office workers spending five days a week in the city centre. No longer are people willing to spend what little disposable income they have on a Thursday night out.

The Restaurant Association last year released survey results showing businesses were reporting lower revenue, fewer customers, and greater strain on their mental health.

In Wellington, the change in Government and subsequent public sector job cuts have also seen the clientele for restaurants cut to the bone.

Despite this, Boote believes the hospitality sector has needed a reset for a long time.

“Even before Covid. It operates on such thin margins and those margins have got even thinner. Realistically, restaurants should be at a much higher price point than what they are, obviously that will be hard for people to swallow.”

He said the flurry of closures is evidence the sector needs to increase its prices.

“Having other people look after you, serve you, cook for you, there is a value to that that really needs to be recognised higher, I think.

“We focus on doing fewer customers at a higher spend, really acknowledging that dining out is a luxury, it’s a real treat.”

Boote may be right and perhaps restaurants have let us pay too little for too long.

However, it would be a shame if dining out becomes a luxury reserved for only the well-heeled among us.

The recent lowering of interest rates and some signs of sunshine in these gloomy economic times may encourage more people to dine out.

Seeing restaurants full of customers in Ponsonby or Te Aro helps to give our cities life.

What we don’t want is our hospitality sector to be a shell of what it was. If that happens our inner-city suburbs will become permanent ghost towns.

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