I’m getting in a few days early to wish the Premier of this great state NSW @dom.perrottet, a very Happy 40th Birthday for this coming Wednesday! This pic is from September 2020 when he was Treasurer & we caught up for lunch. During his tenure as Treasurer, I always found Dom to be a great listener - particularly when it came to the needs of those of us in the hospitality industry & small businesses. This catch up was about opening up the CBD streets to allow for street dining & to give the struggling hospitality venues more chance to survive as the red tape and extra costs to have tables & chairs on the street outside pre-Covid were ludicrous! Things quickly changed after the summit he announced. A few months later, we caught up again and I remember we were both looking out onto a completely vacant George St - it was a miserable sight! I reminded Dom of our chat back in 2020 & stressed that, given the surprising lockdown, even MORE support was needed to help the industry recover once it finally ended. I suggested a long table lunch, from Park St to King St, to reignite the CBD. He loved the idea, so much so, that he wanted to make it bigger and throw similar events in other parts of town too. So off I went and made some calls.The first were to Police Commissioner Mick Fuller & Rob Sharp from Transport NSW to see if it was actually going to be possible to stop all the trams on George St. Finally I called Ben English, Editor at the Daily Telegraph to get the word out! Everyone was so supportive! On 22nd October, at a dinner meeting with the new Premier, Steve Cox from Destination NSW & Ben English, we shook on it & decided the event would take place on Friday 3rd December 2021. Everything bumped in at 2am & at noon, it was show time! The goal was to open the city for lunch & boy did we do that! Dom and I sat next to each other & I gave him a @lukeskitchensyd cap. It really was a great day! So... Mr Premier, wishing you a very Happy Birthday for Wednesday. Thanks for all your enthusiasm & hard work for our state! And, just quietly, I’d love to do another Long Lunch later this year... bigger - or, I should probably say, LONGER - than last! LM #ManganMondayMemory