Authorities withdrew the trams from service in late 2018 when they were deemed not to meet modern safety standards.
But Mr O’Brien says he had retained his contract to run the mobile restaurant,which has taken diners through Melbourne suburbs for more than 30 years. He said that in its later years,the service served about 70,000 customers per year,about 40 to 50 per cent of them from overseas.
The trams the restaurant used,built between 1947 and 1950,were now redundant and couldn’t be re-used,Mr O’Brien said.
He said this was disappointing but he was keeping the door open to resuming the service.
“We’d have to build new trams,and that’s the problem because they’re very costly and the financial viability of that doesn’t appear to stack up. But it’s not inconceivable.”
There also needed to be a long-term commitment to the project from the state government and Yarra Trams,he said.