Taste of success as food spend keeps on rising

SPENDING at cafes, restaurants and takeaway food shops has been steadily increasing in Tasmania for the past 10 years.

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics retail trade figures, $36.5 million was spent in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food shops in November 2007, and $58.5 million in November last year — the most recent month for which figures are available.

It’s an increase of about 60 per cent.

In the past five years — November 2012 to November last year — the rise was about 25.5 per cent, or $11.9 million.

Isabella Lubiana and Joel Edwards, co-owners of popular Berriedale restaurant Local Pizza, have just opened a second restaurant, Ti Ama, on Castray Esplanade at Battery Point.

“We [expanded] because it’s very busy and we can’t really keep up with demand,” Ms Lubiana said. They opened Local Pizza in 2015, and Ti Ama this month.

Ms Lubiana said the new restaurant had been “flat chat” since it opened.

Both restaurants focus on Neapolitan-style wood-fired pizza, but Ms Lubiana said Ti Ama was more high-end.

Local Pizza’s customers came from all over, Ms Lubiana said.

“We have a lot of people [from] the immediate area ... we get people coming from Sandy Bay, Taroona, Kingston, some people come from Dodges Ferry and then we get a lot of tourists from Mona as well. “It’s a real mix of people.” Restaurants and takeaway meals contributed $305 million to tourism in southern Tasmania in 2015-16, according to the most recent Tourism Research Australia report.

Of the tourism products included in the report, restaurants and takeaway meals accounted for the third-highest contribution.