Lisa Quarrie, together with her husband Brent Quarrie, have owned and run eateries in Hamilton since 2007. Mrs Quarrie said the last few years have been even harder than when they set up their first business during the global financial crisis. Photo: Libby Kirkby-McLeod
The owner of two Hamilton hospitality businesses says the industry has been picked up, shaken up and spat out as something quite different.
Lisa Quarrie, together with her husband Brent Quarrie, have owned and run eateries in Hamilton since 2007. She said the last few years have been even harder than when they set up their first business during the global financial crisis.
"We are like a household, but on steroids. All the pressures that households are feeling, we are feeling," she said.
Their experience mirrored research from the Restaurant Association of New Zealand, which showed hospitality nationwide is either stagnate or in decline in most areas.
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Quarrie said Hamilton was slightly different from other towns in the Waikato region, which relied heavily on tourism. Although people did come through Hamilton to go to destinations such as Hobbiton or Waitomo, Hamilton itself had a resilient economic focused on industry and agri-tech.
However, the Quarries said they had had a tough 18 months because of domestic pressures. They made the difficult call last October to stop opening in the evenings at their business Hayes Common.
Lisa and Brent Quarrie made the difficult call last October to stop opening in the evenings at their Hamilton cafe Hayes Common. Photo: Libby Kirkby-McLeod
"[We are getting] less people through the door; the average spend is down. We are definitely feeling the impact of the recession and the cost of living because we fall into people's discretionary spending," she said.
Restaurant Association chief executive Nicola Waldren said the industry was in the midst of a perfect storm.
"Domestically, we really are seeing customer habits changing. We put that down to the pressures going on around cost of living."
Quarrie said the problems started during Covid, but attitudes had changed in a way that made it more difficult for the sector.
"During Covid, there was this great rhetoric going around about being kind, and being open-minded and supporting local.
"We are almost in a worst situation now in some ways than we were then, and that rhetoric has really changed - it is all around tightening up and not spending."
Quarried was particularly irked by commentators suggesting people could save by not buying a coffee each day, instead of singling out a person's Netflix subscription or Amazon order. Those businesses did generally not employ locals or purchase goods from the local economy, she said.
"It's always our industry that gets pulled up as a way of saving money, that we aren't necessary, but we are a huge employer."
Waldren said the Restaurant Association's latest survey showed a concerning trend in business confidence.
"Thirty-one percent said they thought that conditions might deteriorate over the next 12 months, which is pretty alarming."
Despite this, both Waldren and Quarrie said the industry was naturally optimistic and founded on problem-solving.
"We're in our businesses, we are having to be really resilient, having to think about how to do things differently. It's not going to go back to how it was - and that's not necessarily a bad thing," said Quarrie.