Australian hospitality businesses are increasingly dependent on a narrow window of trading days to survive — and the economics of that concentration are becoming harder to manage.
New data from Tyro’s 2026 Eat Pay Love report shows that bars across Australia now generate 41% of their total weekly transaction value on weekends, despite weekends representing just 29% of trading days.
The numbers point to a hospitality sector where peak periods account for an outsized share of the pie — and where the ability to price and staff those periods appropriately is becoming an existential question for many venues.
That pressure is sharpest around public holidays, when labour costs spike, and consumer price sensitivity runs high. Three in four Australians (76%) say they dislike paying higher prices on public holidays and weekends, and one in three (31%) actively avoid venues that charge more on those days. Yet those same surcharges are often what make it financially viable to open the doors at all.
The report asked small business owners what would happen if public holiday pricing were removed entirely. Nearly one in three (31%) said they would stop trading on weekends and public holidays altogether. Almost one in 10 (9%) said they would need to close their business entirely.
More than a scheduling challenge
For an industry already navigating rising operating costs — cited as the top concern by 42% of small business owners surveyed — the weekend concentration problem is more than a scheduling challenge. It reflects a structural tension between when customers want to go out, how much they’re willing to pay, and what it actually costs to serve them.
Reduced customer spending is the second-biggest concern among operators, flagged by 32% of business owners, with rent pressures weighing on one in four.
The challenge, the report notes, is not a lack of customers — Australians are still going out. But they are more deliberate about how they spend, and that deliberateness is compressing margins when venues need them most.
Confidence is holding
Despite the pressure, operator confidence is holding with 86% of small business owners saying they still expect to be operating in 12 months — up from 75% the previous year. For many, the response has been to lean into food-led offerings and value-driven pricing rather than compete on volume.
The weekend concentration data reinforces a wider theme running through the report: the hospitality sector is not facing a demand collapse, but a demand shift.
Customers are concentrating their spending into fewer, more deliberate occasions — which means the stakes around those occasions, for operators and guests alike, have never been higher.
Consumers, meanwhile, are already anticipating further price increases. Australians expect the price of a coffee to reach $6.70 by the end of 2026 and a schooner of beer to hit almost $10 — both figures already bumping against the ceiling of what consumers say they are willing to pay.
The Eat Pay Love report is based on consumer and small-business owner survey data, combined with Tyro transaction data from across the Australian hospitality sector.
