Put a Jab on the Menu: Australia’s Hospitality Industry Unites for a Hard-Hitting Campaign To Save Restaurants, Bars and Cafes

Some of Australia’s very best chefs have teamed up with ad man David Nobay to create “Put a Jab on the Menu”.

The hard-hitting new print, online and radio campaign will launch this Friday on the back of a 60-second film. It’s all designed to encourage diners to get vaccinated to help save a local food-and-beverage industry laid low by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Chefs from around the country featured in the campaign include Matt Moran, Danielle Alvarez, Neil Perry, Shannon Martinez, Maurice Terzini, Anna Ugarte-Carral, Frank Camorra, Victor Liong, Adam D’Sylva, Ross Lusted, Jacqui Challinor, Alex Munoz Labart, Massimo Mele, Nick Holloway and Morgan McGlone.

Guillaume Brahimi, the campaign’s industry ambassador and owner of Bistro Guillaume, says vaccination is the only way to ensure the Australian restaurant industry’s long-term future in the face of a worsening Covid-19 pandemic, now supercharged by the highly infectious Delta strain. It’s a sentiment reflected overseas, where many countries are introducing mandatory vaccine green passes for restaurants, bars and cafes. Both Sydney and Melbourne are currently under hard lockdowns, with seemingly no end in sight for restrictions in the NSW capital.

“Whether it’s a small suburban Thai restaurant, a country pub, a cafe, a 300-seat fine diner, every person who works in hospitality does it because they want to bring happiness to people by service or food,” Brahimi said in a statement. “But regardless of our shared passion, there’s one thing that we can’t overcome, and that’s empty tables.