I like to be a regular. In principle. In reality it has never been possible because I also like variety. That is until recently.

Variety has been sorely missed during this pandemic. Queue the lines about the longest lockdown, which for the record, was not anywhere near the harshest lockdown globally, but dragged on like the 2019 grand final. If you think I’m embellishing you were not in Melbourne. No one lives here for the weather. Going out is a way of life; it is life itself.

I wrote a bit about Pillar Of Salt when the lockdown had just begun. At the time I knew a lot of the staff by face, but not by name, and I must admit we were all okay with that. The person who had the most impact on me, with a simple “things have changed” type disclosure, told me over the weekend that they were leaving. That was simultaneous with another resignation from someone who I, and my wife, had really built a friendship with.

It’s hard to admit in a sense, but I’m really quite sad about it. Their sense of “this place reminds me of a very difficult lockdown” is fair, but in my mind “you were part of the reason my family got through lockdown”. Again, I’m not embellishing. Sometimes we went weeks with only having conversations between ourselves and the staff at Pillar. I’m genuinely sad thinking about that ending, but I know that in other post-lockdown times it is not the same when you get busy.

I want to tell the staff at Pillar Of Salt, and I want other hospitality staff to know, that the relationship with customers is important. It means a lot, and I hope everyone takes some time to remind the cafe and restaurant staff of the places they frequent that they are important to them. I’m an emotional person and I can tear up a bit when I talk emotively, but I hope I was sincere when I told people like Franco and Lauren what they meant to Catherine, Sydney and I, over the past 18 months.

At the start of the lockdown, Sydney was 10 months old. Between Catherine and I we would have averaged four to five trips to PoS a week since then. In that time he learned to walk, talk, wave at the staff, speak to the staff, have countless baby-cinos, and hear how his Mummy and Daddy interact with people. It’s 20 months later now. That’s an important legacy.

Here’s two photos of two different venues soon to be opening at the most incredibly difficult time the hospitality industry has ever faced.

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As I often do, I was walking, almost aimlessly, down one of the main streets in my neighbourhood, and immediately noticed two new openings almost across the road from each other. I am not a stranger to the openings along Swan Street. With degrees of critique, interest, novelty, and intrigue, I always want to try the next vendor trying their luck.

Swan Street has had a serious history of success and failure. Not unlike the local football club, there was a very long and bitter drought, followed by a rate of success that defied any detractors. Today the lambs have herded elsewhere, but there is still a buzz along this drag. And not unlike the overall fortunes of the street, many businesses have quickly failed, and many businesses have made their minimum stake plus much more.

You can, however, pick the successes and failures quite accurately, based on my past experience. It is not actually very different from any other street that attracts crowds of diners and drinkers. Gimmicks, and half-baked concepts will ultimately fail, and focussed offerings, with careful maneuvering, might last some distance. Staying for an extended period is fraught, and many successful businesses turn, either pre or post their sale.

If you would like an example I would point to one of my old favourites, Meatmother. What a business! Packed downstairs and up, outside, and with no standing room at the bar, this joint was printing their own cash. I do not honestly know what happened but I do know two things. Meatmother opened another venue in the city, and ultimately the Richmond outpost was sold.

An instant failure was Shannon Bennett’s Benny’s Burgers. Potentially in a haunted premises, from literally day one this venue attracted almost nothing. It didn’t help that the sentiment was negative, and that my first experience here left a great deal to be desired. Sometimes it is impossible to know.

Which brings me to the venues across the road from each other; one on the popular Cremorne side, and the other on the more attractive Richmond side of Swan Street. I really do not like being presumptuous, or negative, but clearly one of these premises is set up for success, and the other for failure.

Let’s start with the potential success story in my eyes. Simplicity, crispness, focus of concept, and modern font. Yes, if the product is terrible quote the “you can’t judge a book” but purely on the marketing and graphic design, there is a seamless offering that I am looking forward to. It is also on-point with a growing trend, and differentiated from the popular offerings close by, especially for office worker lunches, once office workers can once again lunch.

The quite obvious failure is an accident waiting to happen. I wouldn’t walk into this place in Croydon (there are some nice places in Croydon) let alone Cremorne. It is unclear what is being offered, and I’m filled with the threat of stacked glass cabinets, and the discomfort of not knowing whether you are eating yesterday’s “special”.

It is incredibly naïve and presumptuous to judge a venue by its introduction to the street in the form of signs and window dressings. It is also incredible naïve to expect the public to support a new offering not showing enough care prior to opening. In the same way some speakers come up to the podium and declare “I am incredibly excited to be…” you can tell the difference in the body language.

I’m not brave enough to open up a dining venue. I can hardly pass too much judgement in my position. Though I really hope one of these venues is being used for more than providing sustenance to a hungry public! Good luck to both of them. The one supreme differentiator is quality.