Yackandandah pub to open a minute after regional Victoria's seventh lockdown ends

Pubs in regional Victoria are allowed to welcome patrons for seated service on Friday after the end of the seventh lockdown was announced on Wednesday, but are only permitted 10 inside and 20 outdoors.

Yackandandah Hotel publican Peter Cook, who has had the business with his son, Geoffrey, since November 2019, was delighted to be able to trade again, but said bar service would be the priority at this stage.

"We're actually going to open at 12 o'clock for an hour and trade until 1am. We're just going to have 10 people inside. Nobody will want to be outside at that hour," he said.

"It will be by reservation only, there's no use people showing up at that time of night and then we can't let them in.

"We'll look at food on a day by day basis, Hopefully it will be lovely weather and we'll be open a bit for lunch.

"The main thing for me is as soon as I open the kitchen, that's a fair few staff. For 30 people, that doesn't really create a return that pays the bills for opening."

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Wodonga's Huon Hill Hotel will reopen for dinner service only under the strict capacity limits.

But general manager Veronica Parker said the situation is far from ideal.

"We won't open for lunch because it's just not viable at this stage," she said.

"We'll still do our takeaway dining as well to try and boost the coffers a little bit.

"You can tell that people are dying to get out because the phone has been ringing already.

"The weather is looking okay, but Sunday looks pretty ordinary, so when you're outside it's a bit of a worry.

"We've got to check IDs and all that stuff again, so it's not really cost-effective to open for more than we're going to at this stage. Hopefully in another week we'll have a bit more freedom."

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