Two prominent restaurants in Suva, one a medium-high class eatery, have closed operations recently as the downturn experienced in this sector continues, Fijilive has established.

In a survey conducted in the past weeks, this online news agency has established that 17 jobs were lost after the closure of The Point After Restaurant situated on Queen Elizabeth Drive in Nasese, and Green Olive Limited located on Cumming Street.

It has been established that eight restaurant workers and four security officers lost their jobs from the abrupt closure of The Point After on April 9.

Five are believed to have lost theirs subsequent to Green Olive’s closure a few weeks earlier.

No comments were able to be obtained from Green Olive Ltd because their telephone line remained engaged since contact was initiated three weeks ago to date.

Several attempts to reach the director of The Point After Restaurant, Margot Jenkins, on her mobile and landline proved futile as well.

However, the owner of the property that housed The Point After, Dave Lavaki, revealed to Fijilive what he described as an unfaithful act.

He confirmed the closure of the restaurant, saying it owed them $60,000 in rent arrears for eight months.

He said the restaurant closed operations a day before he was to meet with the management, in the presence of their respective lawyers, to discuss and agree on how best to settle these arrears.

"On the ninth, they upped and left. We received information that the restaurant operators were removing some of equipment from the restaurant and that was when we confronted them," he said.

"This equipment is held in storage somewhere and we are trying to have it released and auctioned so we can recover some of our money."

Lavaki said he was now awaiting further advice from lawyers before further plans were pursued.

Information obtained from former workers of the restaurant revealed that the restaurant begun to face financial difficulties following the military coup in December 2006.

These workers, who preferred their identity be withheld, said their contribution to the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) had not been paid for almost a year.

They also revealed that the restaurant was gradually laying off staff when they took their annual leave.

A number of restaurants located in the capital city have reported the difficulties faced while it continuously absorbed price increases.

Most restaurant businesses prefer to absorb costs, fearing that a price increase will turn customers away.

A locally-owned coffee shop, on the other hand, has hinted it would have to make "tough decisions" later on the year if business continued to dwindle.

Baristas’ owner Jashwant Singh told Fijilive its input cost shot up 20 per cent since the end of December 2006 to date - attributed to the political situation in the country and the continued soaring of food prices.

He said purchasing its raw materials, including vegetables, meat, milk, butter and other imported ingredients, was proving expensive although it had to absorb these increases.

Singh added that during this economic crisis, Baristas now only had as its customer base of expatriates and those who fell in the "hefty-salary" category.

He said this category of customers was the one sector of the market that "pretty much kept us trading and going above...somewhat of a break even".


Fijilive