Iconic Melbourne and Sydney venues like Vita, the Rebranded Press Club and rebranded Hellenic Republic restaurants.

We're all closed.

The fate of 400 staff is now in limbo.

Is new.

Buyers for the restaurants are trying to be found Now It's Administrators put out a statement last night saying the group hadn't been able to recover that hit to attribute ation despite the rebranding, and also blamed the rides of delivery APS, which can take up to a 30% commission on food deliveries.

But I've been speaking to the restaurant association.

Its CEO also partly blamed the fear work on Guzman for naming and shaming George Callum Barris even though his company had voluntarily owned up to the underpayments.

And where's Lambert also told me restaurants in general are buckling under the Bush fire crisis and significantly rising costs.

The base wage for a restaurant employees, while overall wages are stagnant, is up 36%.

The cost of food and beverage is up 30 to 40%.

The cost of rents are up 35 to 60%.

The cost of electricity is up 150% of the cost of gas is up 50%.

And we expect that the Fair Work Commission is going to come out with another wage increase to the minimum wage on the award rate in just a few weeks.

This is just gonna add increased pressure to an industry that is already doing it tough based upon outside forces now is, Lama told me.

Many large chain restaurants are simply no longer able to turn a profit use for these rising costs, and they will even need to raise their prices or closed for more on their slit.

With John and Sydney by financial journalists and strategist with Stock Market News Marcus Today It's Henry Jennings.

Good morning, Henry.

Good morning.

So, look, I think that no one would dispute that in the George Callum Baris case, he is largely to blame for his own demise, that underpayment of nearly $8 million.

But the point mais by with Lambert, there is that the restaurant industry in general is under a lot of pressure.

Yeah, I think especially the fine dining end is under North little pressure ingredients or just getting more and more expensive.

Ondas West was saying.

Wages are also going up a cz Well.

I think consumers are changing in their appetites completely as well going from or mid range and family experiences that that sort of taking out the fine dining.

And that really is, I guess, the function of the economy at the moment, which is certainly not going spectacularly well.

We've seen that with a number of retail chains collapsing on, that only feeds through into the same narrative that's affecting restaurants.

So it is a tough world out there.

We've seen Heston Blumenthal.

We've seen Neil Perry.

We've seen others.

Jamie Oliver, of course.

Another high profile restaurant train under pressure and collapsing in Australia, at least so it is a very tough world, I think out there.

But certainly, you know, those that have the formula right do tend to do quite well.

You have to look a TTE Justin.

Heh.

Mrs.

Empire here in Sydney, which does appear to be very resilient despite the downturn in consumer sentiment we're seeing at the moment.

It's always been a really tough game, but as you say, with the general consumer sentiment the moment even tougher.