AS CORONAVIRUS takes its toll on local businesses, one restaurant owner has taken the opportunity to help those in self-isolation get restaurant-quality food while also keeping his staff employed.
This week, Fish D’Vine launched a new delivery option, D’livery, that will give residents from Shute Harbour to Whitsunday Acres the ability to have a range of dishes delivered to their doorstep.
The service was originally going to be rolled out at the end of the month, however owner of Fish D’Vine Kevin Collins said as the situation around coronavirus continued to escalate, he wanted to take action sooner rather than later.
“There’s no doubt we’re in difficult times for the restaurant industry across the world … it is absolutely unprecedented,” he said.
“We just launched a new product to adapt to the changing circumstances we’re faced with, we’re going big in home delivery for food and drinks because I think this is going to be the future.”
Mr Collins said there were two major reasons for launching a delivery service, to feed those who are self-isolating due to coronavirus and to keep his staff in work.
“There’s a great quote from Charles Darwin, he said it wasn’t strongest animal who survived, it wasn’t the smartest animal to survive, it was the animal most able to adapt,” he said.
“I’m sure this will come and this will go … but it’s what we do in the ensuing six to 12 months will be the making of some businesses or breaking of some.
“Our choice was to sit on our hands and wait for things to get better or go out and make things better ourselves.
“We have 50 staff and I want to come out on the other side of this with 50 staff.
“That’s really what this comes down to, paying bills so that when this passes we’re still standing.”
The menu will include favourites from the restaurant as well as drink options from Airlie Beach Hotel.
D’Livery will launch this Friday on a trial basis with manual systems before migrating to a completely automated app-based system in the coming weeks.
Mr Collins hoped he could get feedback from the community during the trial to help tailor the service to residents’ needs.
The D’livery menu and more information including pricing can be found on their Facebook page.
Source: Whitsunday Times
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