Has the humble beer coaster become a casualty as bars and restaurant adapt to accommodate COVID-safe regulations? It is not the only change you are likely to see in bars and clubs.
Venues in the hospitality industry have adjusted to new practises within their businesses to be able to reopen their doors, including laminated menus, the cleaning of multiple touch points and keeping items such as salt and pepper off tables.
Brisbane's Port Office Hotel manager Nick Gregorski said coasters had been missing from bars for a good reason.
"Multi-touch items like cutlery, keno tickets, pencils and beer coasters are now kept behind the bar and are given to people when they ask for them," he told ABC Radio Brisbane.
Mr Gregorski said new rules meant that the humble drink coasters could not be stacked on tables anymore.
"Having them spilled on tables was another way of spreading COVID," he said.
"If five people touch them and another group comes and touches them there can be issues."
He said many venues were also looking for ways to cut costs.
"They used to be everywhere in the past but things are a lot tighter with budgets now too," Mr Gregorski said.
Callers to ABC Radio Brisbane said drink coasters had still been popping up in some clubs.
Glenda Thomas, Camp Hill: "I was offered a cardboard coaster when I ordered my drink but staff told me it was only to be used once."
Mary Harding, Toowong: "We were given clean coasters at a restaurant and then they were cleared away at the end of our meal."
Single-use plastic increase
In addition to items leaving the bar, the reliance on single-use plastic in the hospitality has increased as businesses switched to take-away during the lockdown.
Toby Hutcheon, Queensland manager of Boomerang Alliance, a sustainability group, said consumers' pre-coronavirus preferences for reusable containers had not died out just yet.
"It has been the case that single-use plastic usage increased but we're hoping things are stabilising now," Mr Hutcheon said.
"The main problem is cafes and restaurants that weren't used to providing take-away switched to single-use plastics and cups.
"Many of the customers don't like using single-use plastic so businesses know it's important to switch away from single-use but it is a big problem."
Mr Hutcheon said he hoped people would remember what they were doing pre-pandemic and continue to reject single-use packaging.
"Our habits haven't become entrenched yet as a new practise," he said.
"I think as things stabilise and more laws are introduced into parliament in states such as Queensland, we have time to introduce changes so everyone is ready."
