In the coming weeks and months, Griffin Burger will open a new venue at Stockland Wendouree while the Armstrong Street location will be turned into sister restaurant Dr Fill.

The company hopes the change will expand its delivery reach across the city and reinvigorate its lowest-performing CBD store.

The new location comes in addition to the Griffin Burger and Dr Fill restaurants already at Delacombe Town Centre.

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With COVID wreaking havoc on businesses, the business had no plans to expand but could not turn down an offer to open in Wendouree.

Co-owner Sam Griffin said one of the key factors in the change was the lack of parking at Armstrong Street not fitting the takeaway-heavy model of a burger restaurant but hoped the dine-in, cocktail-focused Dr Fill would work better.

"We weren't actively looking for anything. Obviously, due to COVID, we weren't doing too well, but then Stockland came to us with a pretty generous offer and really good incentives that we couldn't really say no to," he said.

"Although it is kind of a foodie strip, people prefer to come here if they're going to stay for a certain amount of time, rather than just in and out, because you'll end up walking for 10 minutes from your car to get takeaway and walking back 10 minutes.

"We decided to move Griffin Burger up to Stockland after their generous offer just for the parking, because our DTC store's so much busier than Armstrong Street, which it really shouldn't be, I don't think, being so far away from the centre of town and Armstrong Street being in the centre of town."

While opening a new venue might look like a business doing well, the pandemic has pressure on Griffin Burger like many other businesses.

Mr Griffin said closing its Armstrong Street location altogether was a viable option at one stage after the business narrowly missed out on receiving JobKeeper payments.

"We opened Dr Fill a week before the restrictions started, so that was pretty stupid on our behalf. At the same time, we bought a warehouse that we fitted out with a full commercial kitchen for central distribution to all of our shops, which we couldn't really use," he said.

"It was tough. We kept all of our staff on and we definitely weren't looking to expand because we were losing money.

"The directors, myself, my dad, my brother, put in a little bit of money and Stockland's giving us some good incentives to go up there, so it's definitely not a reflection of our business doing well. It might be another stupid thing that we do but we'll just go for it while we've got the offer there."

Griffin Burger's Wendouree store is expected to open in early November, with Dr Fill at Armstrong Street to open a few weeks prior.

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