The Hotel's owner, Matt Humphries, said the hospitality venue had been planning on developing an outdoor space and used the circumstances of 2020 to make it happen.

"It is something that has been on our radar that we wanted to develop and deliver and we always just never quite got it finalised," he said.

"Once everything happened with COVID last year, and there was a strong push from the government to increase outdoor dining, we thought it was the perfect opportunity for us to put some of our ideas into action.

"We also feel like the outdoor dining experience that people have been pushed towards will continue on for a lot longer than the pandemic will.

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"People are feeling more comfortable to eat outside and I feel like we have a space, with great views and we feel like it all comes together with Jay Jay's Kitchen launching."

Mr Humphries said the new expansions involved renovating a 20-foot shipping container to help create an outdoor entertainment area with a commercial kitchen and bar.

He also thanked the Northern Grampians Shire Council, who helped with the expansion through their Business Support Program grants.

"Obviously last year was extremely tough for a lot of people, not only those in the tourism industry," he said.

"However, we just felt like this was a perfect opportunity to put this into action.

"We would have loved for the site to be open before Christmas, but we had a few hurdles that meant we couldn't quite get the project completed."

"We will have tap beer, craft beer, local wines and cocktails and from a food perspective, it will be based around street-food based cuisine from all different parts of the world.

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"So we could end up with new products weekly, or possibly, daily which will give us great versatility and variety of food we can deliver to people."

Mr Humphries said, like many other businesses in the area, the Halls Gap Hotel had been struggling to find staff which may restrict opening times.

"We would like it to be open for every weekend, and especially for long weekend's and school holidays and unfortunately with the staff hurdles we have all been facing we won't be able to do that," he said.

"So until we can get on top of this staffing crisis, we won't be able to be open as much as we like, but until we get that under control, it will at least be open every weekend."

As part of their opening events, the Halls Gap Hotel is hosting Melbourne musicians, the Pierce Brothers, from 3pm on Sunday, March 21, in their new outdoor area.

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