The extended COVID-19 alert level 4 lockdown in Tāmaki Makaurau has seen some Māori kai businesses taken to brink.
Despite the resilience they've shown in 2020, the Delta variant has delivered a cruel blow and created a new set of challenges.
The Toby's Seafood chain of fish and chip stores are a whanau favourite around Tāmaki Makaurau, but they've been off the menu since the level 4 lockdown began almost five weeks ago.
"As much as it disheartens me, you've got to think quite positive," said owner Patrick Tobin. "If you let it get you down it can take quite a toll on yourself."
The halt in trade has given Tobin time to reflect on the only livelihood he's ever known.
"Sometimes I ponder, I've been in business for such a long time - is it time to give up? Apart from seeing the amount of dollars I'm not making, you just wonder how long could this possibly be? When you've got 120-plus staff it's a lot of responsibility that you take on," he added.
Like Tobin, Renee Coulter's restaurant Coco's Cantina weathered last year's lockdown but this time around, it's a lot harder.
"I'm stressed, I'm anxious but I'm also feeling optimistic - does that make sense can you be all those things? You have to be everything at the moment," she told The Hui.
"You start to have to think if this goes on and on and on how much debt do you take and how long is it going to take you to pay all that back, and if you're in an industry like hospitality where the margins aren't great you have to start doing the maths what's going makes sense."
Both food outlets have been granted the Government's COVID-19 wage subsidies and resurgence support payments.
"The resurgence payments - you have to have it," Coulter said. "It just pays the basics. The wage subsidy, again, that just pays the basics. We're all topping up the wage subsidy."
Coulter said it is time to tailor the subsidy to a business' particular needs.
"I would like to see wage subsidy become a flexible tool based on your comparative turnover and how your business is actually faring and what industry you are, and how many restrictions are on you, rather than it just be a one level, two level, three kind of thing," she said.
Two weeks ago, Toby's started doing online orders of fresh kaimoana but is only operating at 20 percent of their normal trade.
"We offered an online, non-contact, same day delivery service and that's the best thing we ever done. We're able to service our people of South Auckland and give them the opportunity to get a product delivered to their door, and if that was one person less that had to stand in the queue at a supermarket, that made us feel good," Tobin told The Hui.
"If the question is: are we making any money? No, all we are doing is offering a service. If you can offer a service today while we're at level 4, it's reciprocal from our clients when we open at level 3."
In 2020, Coco's Cantina re-opened for takeaway meals when the city moved down to alert level 3, but this time, with the Delta variant, they're playing it safe and won't be cashing in when the looser restrictions come in.
"The realities are when people love their takeaways, especially when they haven't had it for five weeks and so as soon as you put any system under pressure, cracks will appear and so we actually changed what we're doing in level 3. We're doing dinner kits because we see that as a safer way to really maintain distance and the rules around Delta too," Coulter said.
She said they've also cut their seven-day operating business down to five days and changed their menu so it's not as broad.
"That meant we could keep our team a bit leaner, it meant that we didn't have as big monthly and weekly supplier invoices because we were just that little bit tighter. So we've been walking that line, trying to get the balance right."
Tobin said whanau have become much more price conscious in these uncertain times.
"There isn't a lot of surplus income to splurge out on and that's one good thing I like about whole fish and shellfish," he said.
"It's a product that you can get that you can feed a family, and so you get a whole kahawai or a whole mullet, not only are you eating the whole fillet, you can eat the heads and frames too. You get a good return out of a small outlay. Being price-effective is important for us."
As businesses and employers have had to be adaptable, they're asking the Government to be more flexible in meeting their changing needs.
"We can't make wage subsidies or rules around tax or the resurgence package, any of those things can't be blunt instruments," Coulter said.
"Just making hard and fast rules - this is what we did last time, so this is what we're going to do this time - isn't necessarily going to help us when we don't know what to expect and how long these might continue. Tāmaki does need extra wrap-around support."
Tobin agreed.
"We've got the highest Pasifika and Māori population, we're the biggest city in Aotearoa, we're the start of where everything begins. Targeted funding definitely needs to come to Tāmaki."
