Food rots inside quake- zone restaurant
The owners of a top Wellington restaurant could be left tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket from last month’s earthquake.
Upmarket Asian- fusion restaurant Dragonfly has been forced to temporarily close because it i s near a quake- damaged Tory St carpark and inside a safety cordon, wiping out Christmas bookings and leaving its fridges full of rotting meat and produce.
Brent Wong, who co- owns Dragonfly with his sister Tania Siladi, is devastated to have the year’s busiest trading time swept off the table, having spent five years building the business from the ground up.
“That’s Christmas gone for us. We still have a chiller full of food which we can’t get into. We haven’t been allowed to go back in. There’s a huge amount of food just sitting there, rotting away at the moment,” he said.
“Whenever we do get back into the building, it will be one hell of a cleanup.”
Frustratingly for Wong, his restaurant was structurally unaffected by last month’s quakes, but it remains behind a cordon in Courtenay Central because of concerns about the neighbouring carpark, which looks likely to be demolished.
It is one of a number of buildings and roads shut down by the quake, causing disruption to thousands of residents, businesses and tourists.
Wong has been told it could be another month before he can set foot in his restaurant.
And he can’t even claim on his insurance yet, needing to ride out another week of a 21- day quake stand- down period.
“Because there’s nothing wrong with our building, it comes down to business interruption insurance. And because it’s an earthquake, there’s a 21- day stand- down period. So we’re by ourselves pretty much,” he said.
“It does put a lot of pressure on. We’re a busy business so are probably more fortunate than others, but still, once money stops coming in, it makes life a lot harder.”
Despite the financial pressures, Wong is sticking by his staff and still paying wages.
“We’ve worked out a pay package for them,” he said. “Staff are half our business and to reopen without them would be an absolute nightmare. It’s not their fault this has happened either and a lot of them have been with us for a very long time, so it’s a matter of looking after them until we get through.
“We’re going to get a pop- up site up and