The business lunch has changed. Gone are the days of the three-martini lunch or even the ‘power’ lunch. Perth’s professionals are demanding a new style of dining when they’re doing business, and local restaurants are rising to meet the challenge.
The business lunch has changed. Gone are the days of the three-martini lunch or even the ‘power’ lunch. Perth’s professionals are demanding a new style of dining when they’re doing business, and local restaurants are rising to meet the challenge.
The business lunch has changed. Gone are the days of the three-martini lunch or even the ‘power’ lunch. Perth’s professionals are demanding a new style of dining when they’re doing business, and local restaurants are rising to meet the challenge.
Growth has been most prominent in facilities designed to cater for small- to medium-sized groups not content with noisy restaurant floors or small, often dark theatrettes.
Inner-city venues such as Cino To Go, Box Deli, C Restaurant, and CBD Restaurant have adapted existing facilities or constructed entirely new areas to respond to the bourgeoning lunch crowd.
The business lunch has evolved to be more about doing business than doing deals over lunch.
And instead of juggling third quarter profit projections, a laptop and a turkey baguette, Italian leather seats, projection screens, plasma monitors, wireless Internet access and dedicated business lunch menus make the experience more productive and more rewarding.
Leading the charge is Cino-To-Go, located in the heart of the business lunch battleground at 182 St Georges Terrace.
Group operations manager Joe Tallarida explains that his Cino boardroom is more than just defacto office space.
“We wanted to create a package that does it all,” Mr Tallarida says.
Recognising a rise in the number of small businesses based in the CBD without any formal or leased conference resources, Mr Tallarida constructed a sleek and fully functional 12-seat boardroom that is meeting solid market demand.
Box Deli at 918 Hay Street offers a secluded mezzanine level and private dining room for up to 25 people.
The facilities include a private bar and lounge as well as audio-visual appointments throughout.
The venue is unique, physically separating the business and non-business lunch trade without disrupting the continuity of the restaurant environment.
The business brigade comprises almost all the lunch trade at C Restaurant. Corporate diners have the choice of using a 25-seat boardroom adjacent to the restaurant and returning periodically for specifically catered refreshments.
In essence, today’s lunch crowd is sandwiched somewhere in the middle of 1980s excessive consumerism and the eat-at-your-desk phenomenon.
The CBD and semi-commercial urban areas such as Subiaco and West Perth now feature a host of establishments that are prepared to become businesses’ third space in terms of dining and working outside the four walls of the office environment.