Proving life is what you make it, I walked into a local restaurant over the holidays.

It's Italian and very good, and they have a new owner.

Who was this person, I inquired?

He came from hospitality, had worked in the city, but he and a mate had decided to, as he put it, take a punt. "It's better to be an owner than work for someone," he said.

I immediately admired him.

The restaurant had been put up for sale because it wasn’t making any money.

That's a familiar story in hospitality and yet I can tell you why this place hadn't made any money.

It was because it was only open five days a week. For dinner. For limited hours.

The first thing our new owner did was open seven days a week and open for lunches.

He even opened on Christmas day and did 20 covers on short notice.

By the time we left town he was more than happy with how things were humming.

So, is hospitality in trouble, or are there too many owners who don’t want to do the work?

Over the holidays I noticed too many people who weren't open, or weren't open long enough, then the cafes that close at 4pm and when you walk in at 3.40pm they say "sorry, the kitchen is closed".

Sorry, the sign on the door says, we are having a well-earned break. "Back on the 3rd of January", or the 6th of January or whenever. This was in tourist country and, let's be honest, I thought all of New Zealand was supposed to be tourist country.

So how much pain is real and how much of life is made harder simply by not trying hard enough?

Is David Seymour right? There are two camps these days - the change makers and the ones who sort of open, but not really, then wonder why things are a bit slow.

Our mate at the restaurant, my bet is, will make a good go of it because he is invested and he is determined and he did a couple of simple things the others could have done but didn’t, so they had to bail.

Winners and losers. Most of it is about choice.

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