Coffee shops are not the real victims, restaurants are and this is why.

For a typical $100 spend here is the industry standard breakdown. $30 cost of goods, $35 wages (normal rates) $10 GST (close enough) which leaves $25 to pay the bills and make a profit.

Now if you take Sundays, the food cost and GST are the same, but the wages are now $70, leaving a loss of $10 before paying the bills and making a profit. This is why many are closed on Sundays and PH's.

Now pubs and clubs are no so badly effected, for two main reasons, one being pokies, the other being no table service. Qualities restaurants don't expect you to wait for the buzzer and collect your own meal, and they most certainly don't have pokies.

Butch, if you can afford to eat 5 star you can afford to pay. As Enzo somebody once said "If you have to ask the price you can't afford it!" Lets get over it, just put your lamb cutlets up to $40/kg and we'll all be happy.

The restaurants that I deal with are fine and happy. They buy my rabbit with a shelf life of seven years at 10$ ,kg and sell for 100$, kg they do not complain.
You need to sort the players out between the innovative,s and the laggers .

Have you worked in a restaurant, retch? Recently?

No Toni, not for a while, however my brother owns a very sucesful one and i know quite a bit about them.

He says on a Sunday he would be better off closing and standing out the front handing out $5 notes to everyone. He is an industry leader.

So what is your involvement Toni? Where is your expertize in the industry and, do you agree or disagree with my figures. If you don't, then please advise your thoughts?

Doog, restaurants don't sell whole rabbits, you rabbit. They also put more on a plate than just a peice of rabbit.

When it comes to running costs for any business, as well as ingredients and overheads, restaurants include their wages bill.

The overall wages bill for a business that operates on weekends should already include in-built penalty rates and those costs are already included in the cost of their meals Monday to Friday.

It's the same for every business that operates on weekends. Why should restaurants (and coffee shops) get special consideration?

In other words, penalty rates are already covered in running costs and any reduction is no more than a easy grab for more profit in a competitive environment.

If they still "can't afford to be open" on a weekend (probably their busiest time) then perhaps they shouldn't be in business at all.

No business has a "divine right" to be successful.