'Did we do well today?': This is what it takes to keep an independent restaurant open

The work is relentless and the earnings unpredictable: So what keeps an independent restaurant owner in the game?

It's a Thursday morning and Bridget Raffal, co-owner of Claret Club, a restaurant and bar tucked into an old terrace on the edges of Sydney's CBD, is bracing for the worst.

One of the kitchen's two heat lamps has broken. Without it the venue's two chefs will struggle to keep food warm until a waiter can ferry their carefully prepared plates of risotto and quince and walnut clafoutis to customers.

"At first we thought it was just a broken bulb so we ordered one — a very expensive bulb," says Bridget, looking like she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Now we think we have to replace it"

The bar's regular handyman, Christian, is on the phone and begins explaining Bridget's options. Her facial expression suggests none of them are great.

"I just want the best and cheapest," she says after she hangs up the call. "That's always what everything comes down to here — do we try for a quick fix or a long-term solution?"

Hospitality has never been an easy job, known for long hours, low margins and high personal risk. But in 2026 the industry is in extreme crisis, facing a tornado of unfavourable conditions. According to CreditorWatch, one in eight restaurants and cafes closed between July 2025 and July 2026, almost double the average of other sectors. Analysts blame inflation, cost-of-living pressures, skyrocketing costs and damaging policy decisions.

A generation ago, average net profit for a restaurant or cafe was around 10 per cent, says John Hart, national president of industry peak body Restaurant and Catering Australia (RCA). By the end of 2025, that had shrunk to 2.5 per cent. Now, with minimum wage increases and costs such as the recent policy shift that means restaurants must absorb card bank fees, profit has dwindled to almost nothing for many operators.

"Twenty or 30 years ago I warned this would be what I called a 'culinary Armageddon'," Hart says.

Rising food and wage costs are partly to blame, but Bridget and her partner and co-owner Harry Hunter say their biggest issue is cost-of-living pressures, which reduce customer attendance and spend.

"We run a tight ship," Bridget says. "We just need more people through the doors."

Independent venues, where the staff know your name and your drink order, where you can drop by for a meal and a chat after a long day at work, and where every inch of atmosphere is created by intuition and imagination, rather than AI — have never felt more important to the fabric of our cities and towns.

"'Commensality' — the idea of eating together to reinforce kinship links — is part of what brings a group together," says Teresa Davis, associate professor of marketing at the School of Business Analytics and Marketing and co-founder of the Australian Food, Society and Culture Network at the University of Sydney. "It builds and reinforces the social fabric."

Independent places like Claret Club do this particularly well. Their intimacy means customers connect not just with each other but with the people who bring the food and wine to the table.

Today, when the world swirls with uncertainty, upheaval and unrest, independent restaurants feel like a lifeline.

"The experiences of being able to hang out with your friends, being able to escape from whatever it is for a little bit … being around people that you don't know, being treated well — all of that feels more essential than it ever has to me before," New York Times food reporter Brett Anderson recently told The Daily podcast.

The ABC spent two days and nights at Claret Club, an independently-run venue in Sydney's Darlinghurst, to witness exactly how much grit and grind it takes to stay open in today's crushing climate, and how much we stand to lose if places like it disappear altogether.

11:40am

The heat lamp issue has been set aside. Chefs Andy Buchanan and Fernando Vargas will have to make do with the remaining lamp for tonight's service, and the waiters and food runners will need to work twice as fast as usual.

Bridget and Harry have begun discussing marketing and social media. There's a wine event upstairs tonight, and another scheduled next week with tickets still available.

"Should I do a last-minute social media push on it?" Bridget wonders.

"I'll write an EDM on Sunday and send it out on Monday," offers Harry, fluent in the shorthand for Electronic Direct Mail, something few restaurateurs would have thought about a generation ago.

"I thought it would be nice if we could have Sunday off together?" suggests Bridget.

Sundays are the one day the couple tries to spend away from Claret Club and their other venue, the wine bar Where's Nick in Marrickville. They have a regular ritual of gathering with friends for a quiz at another wine bar, or cooking something special at home, music on and glass of wine in hand.

Harry shakes his head. "I have to be here for a photo shoot anyway so I may as well do it then." A small flutter of disappointment flickers over Bridget's face.

Bridget says she'll post about the Plat du Bar special the team changes every week: a single-plate dinner and glass of wine that can be eaten at the bar.

"They're a good boost for mid-week sales and they're also culturally important for us," she says. "Solo diners come in for it which we love. People are on their way home from work and instead of going home and standing in front of the fridge and eating a piece of cheese and feeling sad, this is our way to say, 'Come in, let us take care of you'."

But, she adds, "the marketing girl hasn't always been so diligent at remembering to make the posts."

Who is the marketing girl? "Ha! Me. I'm the marketing girl!"

The 'marketing girl' has to work harder than ever to keep the customers coming through the door as people tighten their belts.

"If people weren't desperately struggling to pay their rent and mortgages they'd be able to afford to go out and support restaurants and our city would be more vibrant because of it," Bridget says.

There is also plenty of competition for the money people do have, particularly when hundreds of restaurants are accessible at people's fingertips from the sanctuary of a sofa at home. The food delivery industry — platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash — is worth 1.8 billion according to IbisWorld data. DoorDash research shows nearly three-quarters of Australian consumers think of ordering delivery as "an act of self-care", something to comfort themselves after a big week or to celebrate a special occasion, which is exactly the role that a restaurant like Claret Club is trying to play.

Midday

A new problem. Bridget takes a call about a leak in the restaurant's roof. There's also a leak in the roof at Where's Nick. Both are the landlords' responsibility but it's still up to Bridget to coordinate the repairs. She calls her team at Where's Nick to ask if the Claret Club can borrow their stand mixer.

"Our bread maker fell off the bench and getting it fixed is better than trying to get a new one," Bridget says.

1:00pm

Claret Club isn't open for lunch on Thursdays, but outside, Stanley Street is starting to get busy with the lunch time trade. The white tablecloth tables across the road at Bill and Toni's have a scattering of customers ordering red-sauce spaghetti and tiramisu. Junko, who runs the Japanese restaurant next door to Claret Club (they share a swag of festoon lights across their adjoining terraces) pops in to say hello. Christian the builder arrives, to nut out the heat lamp conundrum. Everyone greets him with hugs.

"It's a real little village here," says Bridget. "Bill and Toni's have sent people our way. The pub guys [The Lord Roberts, opposite] are great, the Bones Ramen guys are friends. There's a WhatsApp group where we all share information about the best plumber, the best ice supplier. Our ice maker broke and — thousands of dollars later — we still don't have an ice maker. So, we borrowed one from a neighbour."

That, she says, is one of the loveliest things about running a truly small, independent restaurant business. Everyone's hanging in there together.

Stanley Street has a long history of togetherness. It was one of Sydney's first true Italian precincts. Family-run Beppi's — famous for its hand-harvested mussels and veal saltimbocca — opened 70 years ago this year (and still stands today). If Beppi's was out of your price range, by the early 1970s you could head to Bill and Toni's, for huge plates of cheap spaghetti and cups of cordial.

Back then, Darlinghurst was a low socio-economic area, dominated by boarding houses. Today it's full of chic, renovated terraces, and residents with money to spend. The Claret Club team simply wish more of them would walk through their doors.

3:10pm

Harry gathers the team in the small alcove next to the kitchen for a blind wine tasting. It's something they do regularly, as he and Bridget want the team to be able to talk with customers about new bottles.

Everyone scribbles notes as they swill dolcettos and gamays, describing what they taste.

Claret Club has a strict policy about wine distributors trying to book themselves in for time with Bridget or Harry in the hopes of getting their wares onto the list.

"We do not take tasting appointments if you haven't been into the venue and spent money with us," says Bridget. "It's about taking the time to get to know us, and to think about how their wines will fit in. Emails are not a relationship."

3:50pm

Ten minutes until doors open, and Harry is still finishing the wine tasting. Someone presses play on tonight's playlist and a dramatic Italian version of Take My Breath Away from Top Gun fills the room.

"Harry loves a playlist," says Bridget. "We call this one 'Italian bangers'."

4:40pm

Guests have slowly begun arriving in the downstairs bar, but there are still plenty of spare seats.

6:00pm

An older couple steps inside. They stand at the entrance, looking slightly perplexed, and Bridget approaches right away. Her body language radiates warmth as she directs them to a table and points out the wine list scrawled on the mirror. She realises they are French, and switches to French herself so they feel even more comfortable.

It's impressive to witness how 'on' a restaurant host needs to be, from the moment the first customer arrives until the last leaves. At every interaction Bridget's face is curious and interested, her body leans forward and every reply comes with smiles and wide-open arm gestures. It's easy to think a restaurant professional is merely passing on information about food and drink, but a good one makes you feel you're the best thing to have walked through the doors that night.

Bridget has hospitality in her bones.

"I grew up in a house that was totally centred on food and wine," she says. "The dinner table was where all the conversations happened. We never had a TV in the kitchen or anywhere near the dining table. Food was how we all came together."

She worked as a barista from the age of 16, then as both a chef and front-of-house, everywhere from France (hence her ability to speak French) to the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, Bridget's favourite moments were always spent around the dinner table with friends.

"You'd buy a bottle of three-euro Montepulciano from the supermarket and if it was a really special occasion, you'd splash out on a five-euro," she says, laughing. "The point was shopping for great food, having a glass of wine in your hand and making a meal with friends."

This, she says, is the sort of atmosphere she and Harry (who previously worked at Bentley Group and Dinner by Heston) wanted to recreate with their own venue.

"We wanted to run a place that reflects the values we care about, particularly treating our staff with respect, so they feel valued and protected. We couldn't do that if we worked for other people."

But autonomy can come with costs. Not only does endless worry over revenue and long hours make for stressful work, but it can