Category: Restaurant Insurance
Small Business Insurance – why the cheapest is not always the best
Are you operating in hospitality, providing accommodation, running a transport business, or operating a cafe?
It can be tempting as a time-poor business owner to choose the cheapest cover you find online. All business owners regardless of their size should be aware of the ins and outs of what’s included in one size fits all policies.
Coverage over price
When purchasing your small business insurance, you need to make sure that you are getting adequate coverage through your insurance policy. Remember you are buying your small business insurance to make sure you are covered if an event was to occur.
Whilst it can be tempting to buy on price, and you certainly need to be comfortable with the price, you need to consider what has been included with your policy and what may have been excluded to enable the lower price.
My mantra I tell all my clients is “coverage over price”
Buying online can lead to under-insurance
Working out the true value of coverage you require for your small business can be tricky. Often it is more than just the property, equipment and stock and can be staff, your business type or category, terminology or other fine-print you don’t think about.
Thinking you are covered and being covered are two different things:
Business Owner Case Study
One client came to me and upon reviewing his business insurance, I was shocked. He ran a business that turned over around $20m per annum. He thought he had good insurance and that all parts of his business were adequately covered. I reviewed his business insurance policy over the weekend and found it was severely lacking. For example, there was machinery in his workshop that would have cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace and were simply not covered by their existing insurance policy. What was most alarming was this business employed more than 30 staff and if the business had been impacted by an insurance event and had not been able to recover, then those staff would have been left in the lurch as well. We highlighted all these shortcomings to the owner and worked with them to ensure that they were adequately covered going forward.
Three Helpful questions to ask:
1: Are you covered adequately? When did you last review your insurance?
2: Do you know what is included and excluded with your business insurance?
3: When did you last use a broker to better understand what is covered and what is lacking with your current insurance policies. They are the experts.
Remember – coverage over price.
3 of the best new Australian restaurant fit-outs
3 fabulous new restaurant fit outs worth protecting
In some restaurants, the design of the space is as big a drawcard as the food and the service. We look at three unique and Insta-worthy fitouts that add another level of flavour to the dining experience.
- Ishizuka, Melbourne
Named for Japanese chef Tomotaka Ishizuka, this exclusive 16-seater is located in a basement on Melbourne’s Bourke Street. Its menu features seasonally-driven, “Kaiseki” haute cuisine served as a 10 to 12-course degustation, priced at $215 per person. With complex, subtle dishes made of luxe ingredients (e.g., Beluga caviar topped with tofu) and served with great ceremony, Good Food calls it an “adventure in Japanese tastes”.
Fitout-wise it’s an adventure too. The first thing reviewers note is what an ordeal it is to even find the place. Fortunately, when you do actually get through the door you enter a stunning, sparse cave with roughly-textured concrete columns sculpted to look like trees, foliage overhead casting magical shadows and a huge floor-to-ceiling fabric lantern/room divider. It’s an experience that one reviewer likened to entering “the lair of the world’s most stylish troll”.
Architects Russell & George have captured the other-worldly feel of the food in their interior, describing it as “bold, unusual, controversial, thought-provoking yet in complete balance – just like Kaiseki.”
- Fonda Bondi, Bondi Beach
People go to Fonda Bondi for tacos, colourful salads, poke bowls and tostadas washed down with a range of signature cocktails. They also go for the whole dialled-down Mexicana experience of the space, a “narrative” that starts in the bustling bar at the front, continues through the intimate booth seating in the middle out to the banquette seating in the rear “sanctuary”.
Interior designers Studio Esteta have used a mix of colours inside to create a humble, at-home feel that echoes the brand’s motto “mi casa, su casa”. Powder blue paint and terrazzo reflect Bondi Beach; earthy shades of terrazzo, leather and wood give the Mexican feels; topped off with shades of green through the potted cacti, and yet more (green) terrazzo.
Custom rattan screens, pendant lights, sconces and tables set against textured walls reinforce the fun, fresh, youthfulness of the brand, its casual service model and its hip location. In fact, the designers talk of how their terrazzo resembles “aerial views of Bondi beach with people scattered along the shores”.
- Ban Ban, Adelaide
Bringing crunchy Korean fried chicken and beer to Adelaide since July 2018 is Ban Ban, which means “half-half” – confusing, since a serving in their restaurant is actually a whole chicken in 14 pieces. The idea is that you can order half with one sauce and/or seasoning, and the other half with a different combination to try a variety of tastes. The chicken is dipped in Ban Ban’s house-made batter, made from more than 15 ingredients.
The K-Pop inspired interior is the work of Adelaide-based Genesin Studio and it’s all about the tiling: handmade tiles from the Netherlands on the benches, table tops and room dividers.
Diners sit shoulder to shoulder on communal bench seats. Baby blue tiling sits with the mint green of the stools and the pastel pink shades of the tableware. Lighting is a mixture of downlights and playful neons.
Principal of Genesin, Studio Ryan Genesin says, “The food’s quite fun and colourful, and I think that’s the joy of it, is that the food sings, and we’re kind of platforming the food and creating a space to display it.”
Whether it’s handmade tiles, bespoke furniture or a shiny new kitchen, these kinds of fitouts are a sizeable investment that as a restaurant-owner you need to protect – whether from fire, storm damage, theft or any number of other risks. For advice on getting the right cover for a hospitality business, contact a restaurant insurance specialist through Advisr.