SUNRAYSIA Cellar Door has copped a “massive blow” from the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting a 90 per cent drop in revenue since March.
Despite a busy school holiday fortnight, owner Greg Christensen said he could be forced to shut shop again due to tough border closures and Melbourne’s lockdown.
He said Sunraysia Cellar Door — like many other cellar doors across the region — relied heavily on tourists.
“On an average day (before COVID-19), I might get 50 to 100 people come through and probably 75 per cent of those would be visitors,” Mr Christensen said.
“The locals come in and buy wine from me, but the visitors all come in for tastings and to hear about the industry.
“When you haven’t got any visitors, you lose three-quarters of your business just like that — it is huge.
“I don’t think we have seen the worst of it yet for visitors, it’s coming and it’s going to be worse.”
Sunraysia Cellar Door closed for three months after the Victorian Government imposed stage 3 restrictions and a state lockdown in March.
As off-premise sales were allowed, the only time Mr Christensen went to the venue was when a customer phoned for a takeaway wine order.
But there was a glimmer of hope in June when restrictions were eased and 20 customers were permitted inside and outside licensed venues.
Mr Christensen said because of this, the school holiday period was “extremely busy” with tourists, mainly from Melbourne and Sydney, visiting Mildura.
The taste of freedom and a new normality was shortlived when numerous COVID-19 outbreaks hit Victoria, and forced Melbourne into another lockdown.
“We have had a lot of people visiting Mildura, but that’s all over,” Mr Christensen said.
“I think (Tuesday) will virtually be the end of it now that Melbourne is in lockdown.
“We haven’t had a South Australian visitor for four months now and NSW visitors can’t really come over here anymore because they have been told not to come to Victoria.
“We are sitting here in this little bubble of our own.
“The only visitors we will get will probably be from Ballarat, Geelong and the country areas of Victoria.
“It is going to be very quiet until South Australia and NSW open their borders and Melbourne residents are allowed to travel again.”
Mr Christensen said he would make a decision next week about whether he can keep his business afloat during the Melbourne lockdown and border closures.
He said he would consider remaining open on Friday evenings, when the Cellar Door is transformed into a wine bar.
“Friday nights we are still a wine bar — we can still have 40 people in the venue.
“We usually have between 100 and 200 people.
“If the Victorian Government follows NSW, and cuts back to 10 people inside, then we will have to shut our doors.
“You can’t make any money, you can’t even cover your overheads, so you may as well turn everything off.
“Your power bill is still like $500 a month just to run all the fridges and stuff — it all adds up.”
Mr Christensen said there wasn’t much anyone could do other than “battle it on and ride it out”.
“Once they do open the borders back up, business should pick back up again, but who knows how long that is going to be now? It could be months.
“It’s going to be a long road to recovery — there’s no doubt about it.
“We can’t do much about that, though, we just have to go with the flow.”
