Take Two

The lighting’s right. The concept’s sharp. Passion, heart and soul have been put into the fit out, and the anticipation of a busy restaurant is strong. The doors open and… not enough people come. Or they don’t spend enough. Or the concept misses the mark. Something just isn’t working.

It’s a demoralising situation that’s faced at every tier of the trade in 2025, resulting in a slew of restaurants hitting the reboot button – some in record time. When Neil Perry suffered a rare stumble with his Sydney Cantonese, Song Bird, the industry veteran closed for less than a week and reopened as Gran Torino; now Italian is on the menu. Newtown’s Flora closed after seven months as a vegetarian eatery, with its replacement, Joe’s Tavern opening in October. Meanwhile Alta in Melbourne’s bustling Fitzroy switched to Cantina Moro after only a five day reno, while in suburban Abbotsford, Nathan Toleman's Mulberry Group rebooted Molli less than a year after opening. Regional Victoria’s Sorrento has just watched Audrey’s elegant fine diner shutter, with firelit Ember “evolving” the very same spot in November. Similar switches are unfurling across the country.

Good Food’s national restaurant editor Callan Boys likens the current chop-and-change nature of the restaurant business to the churn of pay TV. “In today’s television landscape, if you put all that money in and it doesn’t become an instant hit, you’re cancelled,” he says. “Seinfeld wasn’t an overnight success; only in series four did it become a behemoth. But now, there’s no longer that room to develop an audience. I think restaurants are like that as well.”

Reboots may even become a trend, as restaurateurs adapt to evolving diner demands and economic conditions, particularly when industry leaders are visibly taking part. “Neil is one of Australia’s greatest chefs,” says Boys. “I was surprised he flipped Song Bird so quickly. But if he can put his hand up and say, ‘I got it wrong for this market and location, I’m going to change it around,’ then other chefs might be more comfortable doing it, too.”

According to Boys, savvy business owners should be taking future flips into consideration even before they open. “I think if you’re designing a restaurant from scratch now, you’d be talking to your interior architect and saying, ‘If this Greek doesn’t work out and we need to turn it into a mod-Asian, can we do that?” he says.

It’s something chef-owner Alejandro Saravia has experienced firsthand. In September, he closed Morena in Melbourne, an upmarket Latin American diner, which just hadn’t taken off in parallel to its Sydney iteration. The far more casual, snack-menu-oriented Farmer’s Daughters Wine House opened in its place in October. “If you can’t recognise what didn’t work in the situation, then the flip isn’t going to be positive. You’re still going to be lying to yourself,” Saravia says. “We create concepts that are close to our hearts, and seeing one that’s not entirely working hurts a little bit. But at the same time, we’ve got to put our business hats on and make the right decisions.”    

For Saravia, the numbers just didn’t stack up. The goal was to redefine how Latin American food was perceived via fine dining and a tasting menu, but labour and food production costs across the two-level, 40-seater venue proved unfeasible. “We wanted to give Morena six to eight months of operation to see how the venue was reacting,” he says. A hard call was made three months before closure. “We have detailed forecasts, and if we don’t hit those targets and we’re breaking even, or not making money, we have to make these kinds of decisions,” says Saravia. “We needed a higher head spend and the market right now is being very cautious.”

The chef is philosophical, seeing the reboot as a learning experience, one shared by many of those he admires, from Heston Blumenthal to Roger Federer. “I went away with my kids and I tried to disconnect and think about how everything was moving forward. It's good to have some time to absorb the grief.”

A speech by Federer given at a university helped him process that grief. “He focused on the art of failing, and how do you go through that experience that turns it around to be a win,” says Saravia. “Taking every experience as a learning curve is very important. From each restaurant, we learn and grow.” 

Spend on the refit has been deliberately minimal, and synergies are front of mind. The new bar doubles as a wine distribution point for all Saravia’s Victorian venues, with a cellar for private tastings of limited-edition and museum drops. “The beverage team now has a base where they can play around with different wine options without interrupting the structure of the restaurants,” he says.

Perth hospitality veteran Andy Freeman had a crack at a few different reboots before calling it a day on his popular, 450-person space in the CBD. The Flour Factory served classy gins and slick share plates for nine years before covid killed functions and CBD work habits. It morphed into South American-inspired restaurant and bar, Arara. Less than a year later, it became Spring on Queen. He says the motivations were financial. “You can see the wall before you hit it,” he says. “If you’re mapping your numbers and it’s not working, what are the reasons? You do your swot analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunity, threats – and ask, is it easier to close? Or do you sell? That could take six months or longer while you lose money. Or are you up for the challenge and do it again? They’re the eternal questions.”

Freeman isn’t bothered by a perceived loss of face, but he does feel concern for the impact on his team. “I’m not a 20-year-old rockstar bar owner with a huge ego. I’m a 50-year-old guy who goes home and cleans my pool,” he says. “We have a lovely culture in our business. If we do something, we all buy into it and we want it to work for each other. That is sad, if things don’t go well.”

Having gone through two reboots, Freeman calls out timing and concept as the problem areas. “The reopening was in the middle of winter with Arara, we couldn’t wait six more months for the season to be right,” he says. “Spring had polarising nights, and the fatigue was in. Now I’m excited to get out of the CBD and try something different.” 

The costs of a reboot vary from venue to venue. They could be major, or superficial. “If you don’t need to rebuild the kitchen and toilets then it’s just a brand. Paint, light fixtures, menu, wallpaper,” says Freeman. “Relative to opening a brand-new venue in a building without a hospo business already in it? It’s at the lower end of the scale.”  

Tasmania’s Norton Hospitality Group has done its fair share of venue flips over the past 30 years, running nine venues across three states. Most recently it bought Hallam's Waterfront Seafood Restaurant, a Launceston destination diner. After operating it as a special occasion venue drawing domestic and international travellers to the Tamar riverfront, the group dusted themselves off from Covid with a reboot. Business manager Margaret Burt says changing Hallam's to Boatyard, a more relaxed, for-locals offering, has been a difficult transition. “It took us nearly two years for locals to start recognising Boatyard as a drop-in restaurant to have a coffee, a wine and a lunch regularly,” she says. “Friends and family have said directly to me, ‘why did you change it to Boatyard?’ They still expected the same thing.” The restaurant’s playful chalkboard says it all: Hashtag not Hallam’s. 

A marketing drive produced a few surprises. Burt promoted the change on social media, letterboxed 1500 freebie flyers and ran a survey. “From that, we found out 50 per cent of our market came in because they walked past our door. The next best stat was from Instagram. Of the flyers, only eight people came in,” she says. Burt then tackled inconsistencies in staff and management, an ongoing challenge. “A shortage of good staff, chefs, customer service and challenges with training young people makes it hard,” she says. “But now we’ve got a good regular clientele and we’re still growing and improving.”

But what of the shame of admitting failure? The embarrassment of having an idea that tanks? “Chefs and restaurants need to be nimble, follow the data, swallow their pride and say ‘we got it wrong,’” says critic Boys. “It just makes good business sense.”