A St George eatery has completed a $600,000 kitchen revamp, just in time for the tourism season.

Wharf Restaurant co-owner Milos Damjanovic said there was extensive work done to the front of the house when he bought the business in 2016, but very little done to the back of the house.

“I don’t think the kitchen had been upgraded in at least 50 years,” Mr Damjanovic said. “It was really, really bad. The constant maintenance of it was becoming expensive.

“The temperature was always very high in the kitchen and our chefs were suffering. There was at least three different kinds of tile in there. It did not look the way we wanted it to.”

After the restaurant closed for the project in early January, the kitchen was completely gutted, with a special sushi preparation area added, new floors, cabinets and lights installed, better ventilation piped in, electrical wiring and plumbing upgraded, and new appliances imported.

The bar area was also freshened up and the outdoor awnings replaced at the restaurant at 14 Water Street.

“When we first closed, I thought we would be open again in March,” Mr Damjanovic said.

Instead, they were unable to resume business until this month.

One of the challenges was importing new kitchen appliances and equipment.

“About 70 per cent of things such as refrigerators, the grill and the air conditioning units, had to be shipped from overseas, mainly the United States,” Mr Damjanovic said. “That took a long time.”

His landlord, Meyer Properties, paid for structural changes to the restaurant and he paid for the upgrade to furnishings and appliances.

With his doors open again, Mr Damjanovic said it was still too early to tell how the tourism season was shaping up in St George.

“We have only been open ten days,” he said. “So far, tourism at this time of year seems just like it was last year. The ferry is running from Dockyard and I see minibuses bringing visitors into town.”

With only a few social-media announcements to advertise the reopening, the regulars are flooding back.

Mr Damjanovic loves showing them the changes to the restaurant, even the bathrooms.

“Everyone has had positive feedback for us,” Mr Damjanovic said. “Our first week open again went very well and we had a fantastic Mother’s Day. Everyone said the quality of the food and the service was excellent. I am very proud of what we have done.”

His Serbian wine collection still has pride of place in the restaurant.

“No one else on the island has a Serbian wine collection like mine,” said Mr Damjanovic, who is himself from Serbia.

He ships in containers full of the best wine from his home country, with the help of alcohol distributor Burrows Lightbourn.

Mr Damjanovic worked at the restaurant, when it was Tavern by The Sea, in the early 2000s. He left when his work permit ran out in 2011, and moved to Cayman, where he was general manager at the Wyndham Reef Resort.

A few years later, he received a call from his former employer and restaurant owner, Herman Basden, saying he wanted to sell up.

After buying it with Bermudian Lisa Cabral, Mr Damjanovic changed the name to The Wharf, reflecting its placement on Somers Wharf, overlooking St George’s Harbour.