Red tape, wage rises push Brisbane restaurateur to breaking point
Rising compliance costs and complex payroll rules are costing Australian hospitality businesses up to $100,000 a year in administrative overhead alone, according to Brisbane restaurateur Marie Yokoyama, who says the regulatory burden has become so heavy she would now discourage anyone from opening a venue.
Yokoyama, 43, co-owns the four-strong Bird's Nest Japanese restaurant group in Brisbane, employing 65 staff across sites in Everton Park, Portside, West End and Fortitude Valley plus a central kitchen. She and business partner Emi Kamada won the sole season of Nine's The Hot Plate in 2015, using the $100,000 prize to fund their third venue.
Yokoyama singled out time-sheet record-keeping as one of the most burdensome obligations facing operators. Staff clock in and out via an in-store kiosk, but wages must be calculated to the minute, meaning a casual rostered from 6pm who taps on at 5.55pm is automatically paid from that earlier time, regardless of whether they were rostered to start work.
Adjusting a recorded time requires signed authorisation from the employee.
"We're not allowed to change someone's punch in or out [unless] you have a form signed by them with a reason explaining why it's been changed and that they give authority for you to change it," Yokoyama told news.com.au.
With 65 staff, some working split shifts, she said the administrative load escalates quickly, generating "literally 50 messages from staff every week saying, 'Oh, I forgot to clock in'." At an average food and beverage level two award rate of 69 cents a minute, she estimated stray clock-in and clock-out minutes across the workforce could cost the business "anywhere from $60,000 to $100,000 a year".
The comments come as the sector absorbs a string of regulatory and cost changes: a 4.75 per cent rise in award rates from 1 July lifting the minimum wage to $26.44 an hour; new payday superannuation rules requiring employers to remit contributions each pay cycle rather than quarterly, estimated by HR platform Employment Hero to require an average $124,000 in extra working capital per business; and an RBA-mandated ban on credit card surcharges from October.
Restaurant & Catering Australia national president John Hart OAM said the award system itself was a significant contributor to the burden. "There are 52 different regulations that a restaurant business needs to take account of when they open — 52!" he told news.com.au, adding the figure "is growing".
He also flagged a "countback" requirement introduced last August, which forces businesses paying staff 25 per cent above award rates in lieu of penalty rates to retrospectively verify, annually or on an employee's exit, that the arrangement still exceeds what hourly pay would have delivered.
Hart said industry-wide net profit margins now sit around 2.6 per cent, with sentiment "the lowest it's been for a very long time".
Yokoyama's warning follows similar comments last month from Melbourne and Sydney chef Alejandro Saravia, who said he would not recommend opening a new venue in the current climate, citing rising costs and falling guest spending. A Zeller survey of 1,131 hospitality operators found only 12 per cent considered it a good time to open a venue, while roughly seven in ten reported declining year-on-year profit margins.
Jonathan Jackson, 8th July 2026
