The stools are stacked, the pool table is bare, the bar gleams and the glasses are polished to within an inch of their empty, shiny lives.
Trevor Forsyth has been doing a lot of polishing as he waits for patrons to liven up the main bar at The Royal Mail Hotel once again.
“It makes for a very long day when you're sitting here by yourself. I'm pretty good at solitaire on the computer now,” he says with a laugh.
Trevor has the genial, level-headed style of a man used to dealing with bars heaving with people intent on a good time. But even his stoicism has been tested by the tightening grip of continuing COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
For the past six weeks he has spent 13 hours a day in his darkened, cheerless pub on the corner of McLennan and Archer Sts in Mooroopna. The bottle shop is now his only source of income.
“When this place ticks along, you do 15 hours a day and you do it on your ear. That's not a problem. There's people coming and going. But at the moment when you're sitting here on your own all day, it's a long time to think, and I can see how people get a bit stressed out. It's a lot of time to think — and it's not good,” he says.
Trevor is a born and bred Mooroopna man. After 22 years with Shepparton hospitality supply company Warehousing Services, Trevor bought the red-brick heritage-listed Royal Mail Hotel nine years ago as a retirement plan.
“I'm 49 now and I thought I was going to retire about 50. But I reckon this has put me back about another five years. It's going to be a slow road back,” he says.
Before COVID-19, Friday nights at the Royal Mail Hotel would have seen more than 100 patrons enjoying parmy nights and club meetings.
“Footy club, cricket club, bowls, the Rotaries, Kiwanis, Probus, CWA — I reckon there was about 12 clubs we'd have weekly, fortnightly or monthly for a get-together,” he says.
Over the bar, the menu still offers porterhouse steak, barramundi and every variety of parmy, but the specials board is empty and so is the Fabulous Friday board. The tell-tale sign is the footy tipping notice on a wall at the end of the bar.
“To the valued patrons ... the decision has been made to cancel the AFL Football Tipping Competition for the season 2020. The entry fee of $20 will be fully refunded to all punters,” it says.
It's been a helluva year.
“The first lockdown in March was a bit of a shock. When things opened up a bit we tried takeaway food, but it was very patchy.
“We tried parmy nights on Fridays which went well for three weeks but then it just fell away,” Trevor says.
When stage two restrictions allowed up to 20 patrons in the bar area and the bistro, things brightened up a bit.
“Stage two was workable. It was a smaller turnover and smaller scale, but it was workable,” he says.
When restrictions returned for a second time in early August things took a darker turn.
“The first time I was thinking, well, this is only going to be a short-term thing and we'll regroup and bounce back.
“But the second time around it's been harder. The hardest thing was telling the staff, `We're on hold again. You've got to go back to do doing nothing and just wait for the phone call’," he says.
Trevor started the year with 12 staff, but numbers are now down to five — two full-time and three casuals, all on JobSeeker.
Dan Andrews’ announcement on Sunday about the roadmap out of COVID-19 left him disappointed and confused.
“I was looking forward to getting back to stage two. But honestly, I listened to the ABC News and I couldn't get my head around it.
“I went on to the computer and read it five or six times to make sure I was getting it right. But he's done nothing for small businesses, it was a real shock. It's going to be a real slow process. And it's not until the last step that we're going to get people back here,” he says.
But Trevor is a glass half-full man, and he takes hope from the response of his bottle shop customers.
“I've had people coming in I've never seen before — and they're looking after the smaller businesses. Instead of going to the supermarkets they're giving me a go.
“The bottle shop is up 35 per cent — so there is a bit of positive out of it. People have been very good, and I'm lucky for that.”