Can restaurants in Melbourne's CBD survive?

Caterina Borsato's eponymous Italian restaurant is a longstanding lunch date for Melbourne's blue-chip crowd. Despite stay-at-home work orders in place until the end of June, and restrictions meaning she is able to serve just 20 customers at once, she says week one was outstanding, with lunches lasting until 6.30pm. "We took almost as much as a week at full capacity," says Borsato.

But with some employers planning a slow return of employees to the CBD, how will the lunch trade survive?

ANZ has 90 per cent, or 9000, of its employees working from home, with a plan to have a maximum of 35 per cent of those workers attending CBD offices when restrictions lift. Some may continue to work from home indefinitely.

Borsato says if this includes the bank's executives, she could be in trouble. She has few functions booked, which make up a large part of her business.

Jerry Mai, owner of casual Vietnamese eatery Pho Nom with outlets at Emporium and the Collins Square dining precinct, plus Bia Hoi beer hall in Glen Waverley, has a unique view of how diners are filtering back. "The Glen shopping centre is back in swing, bustling with suburban shoppers, which is wonderful to see."

But the city is still quiet. "If working from home becomes more commonplace once the pandemic is over, there will be plenty more CBD dining venues that will go out of business."

CBD business owners are waiting to see what happens, but many, like Joseph Vargetto of Massi in Little Collins Street, are still paying premium rents for sites that no longer have either foot traffic or corporate diners.

Having survived the GFC from 2007 to 2009, the gas shortages of 1998 and the heady '80s when business lunches ruled, Borsato argues that repealing the fringe benefits tax could be an effective way to stimulate corporate dining. "That allows me to hire more people, pay more suppliers." She also thinks more grants for small CBD businesses will be essential in the short term.

Borsato feels lucky she doesn't rely on foreign tourists "But I do rely on people being back at work. When restrictions loosen and I can take 50 people, let's see if I get that many."