Hospitality casualties mount
High-flying restaurant owner Tony Astle is the latest casualty in an increasingly tough hospitality sector in Christchurch.
Six of his companies were placed in voluntary liquidation on Friday including the companies behind his Asian fusion restaurant King of Snake and his bistro Universo, run from Christchurch City Council–owned premises in the Christchurch Art Gallery.
Astle has been in trouble for about a year with suppliers putting his businesses on stop credit and staff at Universo spending the day’s takings on restaurant supplies at Pak ’n Save and Countdown.
The future of the restaurants is uncertain. They were open yesterday but neither the liquidator of the Astle companies, Brenton Hunt, nor Astle returned calls yesterday, and no official statements were forthcoming.
King of Snake was still taking reservations yesterday. Sixty staff could be affected by the liquidations. A source said they were ‘‘beside themselves with worry’’ and had been buying stock out of their own wages to keep the restaurants going.
Astle’s troubles mirror those of well-known restauranteur Jonny Schwass who closed his Harlequin Public House in 2016
with major debts to Inland Revenue, ending in him facing tax charges. Schwass has the Ilex cafe lease in the Botanic Gardens and the council is happy with its performance. Astle is problematical for the council since he is a key tenant in the art gallery building and an important rent source.
Council head of facilities Bruce Rendall said the council had contacted the liquidator to organise a meeting. Rent was paid up until the end of July.
Other hospitality businesses to have closed in the city recently include Tequila Mockingbird, Rockstar Pizza and Chinwag (run by Astle), Chopped, Canterbury Cheesemongers, The Good Goat, and Iconic Club and Bar.
OGB has also ‘‘shelved’’ its fine dining restaurant but continues to run a restaurant service in its two bars in the Government Building in Cathedral Square.
Owner Nick Inkster said his fine dining restaurant had not failed but he could not see a future in it in the current market.
‘‘We made it work but, man, it’s a tough game. It made me realise how hard it can be,’’ he said. The tough environment does not appear to have discouraged new entrants. The latest Restaurant Association report showed outlets in Canterbury increased to 2166 last year, a 5.1 per cent rise from the previous year.
The trade is also bracing for the inevitable shift of custom as the Hoyts cinema complex in Colombo St opens later this month with 17 dining outlets, two very large cinema screens and two screens featuring luxury seating and food-and-drink service. Restaurant association president for Canterbury, Peter Morrison, said people should stop investing in bars in Christchurch until the city’s anchor projects had been completed.
‘‘It’s like the chicken before the egg...we’ve got too many licences and not enough people. When all the new places were being built we were meant to have a convention centre open [and] a metro sports stadium open. We haven’t got the facilities that were promised.’’
The cost of some of the closures and company failures is showing up in liquidators’ reports.
The Villas, a cafe/restaurant in Montreal St, closed at the end of July and the company behind it went into voluntary liquidation on July 29, appointing Brenton Hunt, as liquidator.
The liquidator’s first report released last month shows the company, D & B trading, the directors of which are Ben Dunkin and David McLoughlin, owes unsecured creditors $140,000 and the secured creditors
$435,000. Staff are owed $67,000 in wages and holiday pay and Inland Revenue is owed $100,129 in GST and PAYE.
The company claims to own
$223,000 in plant and equipment but what that will raise when sold is hard to assess.
The Astle liquidations do not include Chiwahwah Ltd, which is in the middle of fitting out its restaurant, billed as the town’s ‘‘craziest Mexican joint’’, in Antony Gough’s new Oxford Tce hospitality complex The Terrace.
The bar/restaurant was supposed to open last month after a series of delays.
Gough said he was confident Chiwahwah would open and he and Lion Breweries were prepared to fund the fit-out if Astle came up short.