What is the Alfresco Restart Rebate?
The Alfresco Restart Rebate is a program that provides NSW small and medium food and beverage businesses with rebates to help cover the costs of creating or expanding an alfresco dining area.
Background
The Alfresco Restart Package supports food, beverage, entertainment, arts and cultural businesses to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and enjoy a COVID Safe summer 2021.
As NSW comes out of lockdown, the NSW Government aims to make it easier for small and medium food and beverage businesses to use outdoor dining to support their operations. The NSW Government has made changes to liquor regulation and planning requirements to allow councils across NSW to streamline their approval processes enabling businesses to create or expand alfresco dining areas such as footpaths and public spaces. In line with the media release on 14 October 2021, certain eligible Small and Medium Food and Beverage Businesses will be able to claim eligible expenses incurred from 14 October 2021 to 30 April 2022.
There are 2 steps involved in applying for the rebate:
Register for the rebate
- businesses must first register to confirm their eligibility
- registrations will close when 5,000 businesses have successfully registered.
Claim the rebate
- businesses that have successfully registered can claim their rebate from late February 2022 for expenses incurred from 14 October 2021 to 30 April 2022
- registered businesses will receive an email when the claims process opens
- claims must be made by 30 April 2022.
Funding
The initiatives rolled out include:
- rebates of up to $5,000 for hospitality businesses to establish or expand their alfresco settings.
- temporary alfresco measures for outdoor dining on public or private land (for example bowling greens and carparks), with the landowner’s consent
- Festival of Place – a series of events in and around the CBD such as Long Summer Nights Program at The Rocks, Darling Harbour and The Domain, Streets as Shared Spaces and Open Streets Program
- permanent outdoor dining as exempt development for pubs and small bars state-wide. This is now active and follows the successful trial that started last year.
Eligible Projects
Eligible expenses include, but are not limited to:
- temporary ground surfaces e.g. decking, Astro Turf, matting, levelling of sites to make them safer
- traffic mitigation/barriers (where not provided by council)
- generators (if required)
- installation of outdoor power points
- lighting
- weather protection for shade and rain
- heaters, fans and misters
- parklets or similar mobile seating.
Eligible Applicants
To be eligible for an Alfresco Restart rebate, your business must:
- have an active Australian Business Number (ABN), held before 1 June 2021
- be located in NSW
- have an aggregated annual turnover less than $10 million (inclusive) for the year ended 30 June 2021
- be a small or medium food and beverage business, defined by at least one of the following ANZSIC codes:
- 4511 Cafés and restaurants
- 4520 Pubs, taverns and bars
- 4530 Clubs (hospitality)
- 4400 Accommodation (limited to hotel and motel operation)
- 1212 Beer Manufacturing
- 1213 Spirit Manufacturing
- 1214 Wine and other Alcoholic Beverage Manufacturing
- have incurred, or will incur, eligible costs and expenses for opening or expanding your outdoor dining areas from 14 October 2021 to 30 April 2022.
When claiming the rebate, you must also, where applicable:
- have development approval and approval to use the land from council, Place Management NSW or private landholder
- have approval for the liquor licence boundary changes.
Note: Only one application per ABN is allowed. The rebate can be used towards outdoor dining expenses at multiple business locations if eligibility criteria are met.
Timing
Applications close 30 September 2022.
