Jason Holley has run Hungry's in Merimbula for three years and knows what the figures should look like over January.
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"From New Year's Eve 'til now conservatively I think we're down 70 per cent but I think by the end of January it's likely to be 80 per cent down," Jason said.
There has been stock wastage too with 25kgs of seafood having to be binned but he says the big one is the staff costs.
"You've got to sit on your stock, watch what you're ordering and pull back on staff and that flows on.
"The 27th December was our biggest day ever, 28th and 29th similar and then on the 30th it was all over.
He said that at the start it was all doom and gloom but he had support from locals and then suddenly Paul McCooey of Splash Internet walked into the shop to give him money.
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"We almost had two grown adults in tears," Jason said
Paul knows that the $1250 that he gave to each of the four businesses, is not going to save them but it might just help in the short term.
"It helps to ease the wages pain and I'll be able to spread some hours back into the staff," Jason said.
Ollie Pitcher and Nicky Austin of Toast in Pambula will be doing the same.
"Ollie called me and said someone wanted our account details and I thought who wants to put money into our account?" Nicky said.
"My immediate reaction was having that sudden realisation that people thought of us as needing help, it was a wake up call that we were a business that they want to nuture as opposed to us dealing with it ourselves. We don't have to lay off any more staff; it's bought us time," Nicky said.
The couple bought into the business with the previous owner Jess Pincini in September to create a new cafe. The three way partnership allowed Jess to take time off while she was having her baby. Now Nicky and Ollie are expecting their first baby in four weeks time.
I'll never go into another summer thinking it's another summer.
- Nicky Austin, Toast, Pambula
As a new business they invested everything in the summer stock, choosing to stock up on wines from the wider region but have moved from worrying about having enough wine to asking if orders could be stopped.
Where they had expected to go through 10-16kg of coffee every day, they are now doing 2-3kg. Ona Coffee in Canberra came down and took back 40kg of coffee to redistribute to local cafes which was a help.
"I'll never go into another summer thinking it's another summer," Nicky said.
