Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mentor and Mark Borris Warren was Burns
Speaker 1: and James Jimmy Bradley, co founders and directors of let's
Speaker 1: just call the co founders of Liquid and lard Up.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mentor. Guys. Thanks for having your brothers.
Speaker 2: We just kind of look alike, brother stress maker.
Speaker 1: You both got a little bit of growth and on
Speaker 1: the around the.
Speaker 2: Chin and the guts.
Speaker 1: Now the guts inne me all right. Not bad for
Speaker 1: being in the hospitality industry, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: like that. But no reason I will ask you your
Speaker 1: brothers because you've been I was written the brief. You've
Speaker 1: been together for a bloody long time. Your brothers from
Speaker 1: another mothers, other mothers or whatever the word is.
Speaker 2: You know, we've been best mate since we were twelve.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's been a long time. Yeah, twelve. So that's
Speaker 1: like Jay Grad and rugby league terms, so from Sydney
Speaker 1: or Melbourne away from year seven that's Jay Grade. It
Speaker 1: used to be Joy Great. I don't know that all
Speaker 1: these days or your days. In my days it was
Speaker 1: Joe Grade in footy and Jay Gray. Then twelve year
Speaker 1: old kids were in year six six, class fifteen fifteen
Speaker 1: six class. I remember I was. I was in year
Speaker 1: seven O twol that's right, and but it was a
Speaker 1: weight division so you had to pay play, believe it
Speaker 1: or not. Year under twelve was Joe Gray was six stone.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking. I don't know that what that is
Speaker 1: in kilograms? It was under you had to be under
Speaker 1: six stone. Man, I'm just date myself and actually in
Speaker 1: a conversation Ray League, yeah it does it does I know,
Speaker 1: because you just reminded me of a period in my life.
Speaker 1: Actually it was actually really good period. So co founders
Speaker 1: and directed, but let's leave directors. We don't care about that.
Speaker 1: Co founders of Liquid and it was Liquid and larder.
Speaker 1: Who's going to who's going to give me the kickoff?
Speaker 2: I guess it is a food and bever Bridge experience
Speaker 2: orientated hospitality company. So Liquid been booze and larder where
Speaker 2: you keep your food lader.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's the old that's the old Irish Scottish
Speaker 1: way of the place of the house where it's a pantry,
Speaker 1: what we call pantry in Australia.
Speaker 2: We originally were called eight as in the number or
Speaker 2: numeral eight because we grew up eight k's from each other.
Speaker 2: But we were honestly sick of trying to explain the
Speaker 2: email signature. It's Jimmy at eight Hospitality. Yes, eight like
Speaker 2: the number, so we said let's change it to something
Speaker 2: more simple, and we got it wrong a second time.
Speaker 2: So we're constantly having to explain sands acause.
Speaker 1: A lot of peple wouldn't even know what a larder man. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: I only you know how I first time I found
Speaker 1: out with the word lader mint is I had an
Speaker 1: Irish girlfriend from Ireland and she kept calling the pantry
Speaker 1: the larder and she said, we going And that's the
Speaker 1: only time I've never heard of the word before lader
Speaker 1: And but it's basically where you coop you were small
Speaker 1: goods and the fridge north of the bridge, not the bridge,
Speaker 1: the fridge. It's not called the fridge. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And like like you know, in the old country where
Speaker 1: my mammy comes from, they'd be hanging up salamis and
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff in there. Yeah right, Well, twelve
Speaker 1: year old buddies, what school did you go to? Where'd
Speaker 1: you come from?
Speaker 2: I grew up in the Hills area out near Cassa Hill,
Speaker 2: I grew up in Glenory was dural. We met at
Speaker 2: Hills Grammar which was one of the local schools out there,
Speaker 2: and then we kind of split in what year ten
Speaker 2: College Rugby.
Speaker 1: Oh well, ok Hill which did us out And that
Speaker 1: was a school my mother used to threaten me to
Speaker 1: go to because it was those days when I was around.
Speaker 1: Was a boarding school and Mama used to threaten me
Speaker 1: to go there if I didn't stop getting in trouble.
Speaker 1: Did it work? Yeah, bloody earth, I didn't. I well
Speaker 1: worked in that I didn't end up going there, but
Speaker 1: I still manage to get myself in trouble, but not
Speaker 1: as much, not as much because that was when the
Speaker 1: naughty boys in the d LSL system went you. You
Speaker 1: were sent to oak Kill and you went it was
Speaker 1: boarding too. Not many people into boarding schools out in
Speaker 1: the west, and that was a boys school when you
Speaker 1: went there. It wasn't.
Speaker 3: It was coed eleven, ten and twelve. Yeah sorry sorry
Speaker 3: eleven and twelve, but it was single sex up to
Speaker 3: your ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't. No boarders and still run by the brothers.
Speaker 3: Still run the brothers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, brother m Bros. Was okay, cool. We just played
Speaker 1: footy out there. They were always pretty good at foot
Speaker 1: because the US to have a lot of country kids
Speaker 1: because it was a boarding school. He's a lot of
Speaker 1: country kids. I used to go and we used to
Speaker 1: have a big rugby league tournament there. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: they payed rugby uniit, but they've stepped up in the world.
Speaker 1: But we footy out there. So you're an o'kill boy.
Speaker 1: And so where was you again, Hill's grabber. Well, that
Speaker 1: sounds fancy.
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't anything to do with rugby, rugby league,
Speaker 2: rugby union. It was pretty non sporting, to be honest.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately it's probably I think it's only forty years old,
Speaker 2: so it's not an old school.
Speaker 1: It's how old are you? Two guys? By the way,
Speaker 1: forty four in your forties see the same age as
Speaker 1: my oldest son. Wow, amaze me feel from where as
Speaker 1: you grew up? Punchbowl. Yeah, so I went to school
Speaker 1: in the Kember. Okay, cool, But you know a lot
Speaker 1: of kids from my school actually sent out Oakhill because
Speaker 1: we're mucking around. If you got to expel from our school,
Speaker 1: that's we end up out at Oakhill. It was and
Speaker 1: for me then it was like a million miles away.
Speaker 1: It was like a massive track to get there from
Speaker 1: punch Bowl, Like I grew up there for the massive
Speaker 1: track to get out there. So when you were twelve
Speaker 1: years of age best mates at school, did you start
Speaker 1: at any stage talk about what you're going to do
Speaker 1: post school?
Speaker 3: It was actually quite strange. We went in different directions.
Speaker 3: I went to school love love sport, didn't love the
Speaker 3: academic side too much. So as soon as I left
Speaker 3: school there was no way I was going to go
Speaker 3: to UNI. So went often did a retail management course
Speaker 3: actually through through wool Worse, which was horrible.
Speaker 1: To be honest.
Speaker 3: Taught me a lot of things, but it was pretty boring.
Speaker 1: We do like War Worst, not because Wars is horrible.
Speaker 1: I mean they've probably got a few sins to answer about,
Speaker 1: but as do Coles, and as do all the rest
Speaker 1: of them, so they're all going to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: But it taught me a lot, It just wasn't what
Speaker 1: to teach it.
Speaker 3: It taught me the fundamentals of how to engage with customers,
Speaker 3: how to do conflict resolution with guests, you know, that
Speaker 3: was the biggest, and also dealing with staff, so how
Speaker 3: to manage.
Speaker 1: Other people, how to work with other people. I was young.
Speaker 3: I was eighteen nineteen years old, and I was managing
Speaker 3: you know, thirty forty year old men. Wow, which was challenging.
Speaker 3: How did you do that as a young with great
Speaker 3: difficulty stuff?
Speaker 1: What would you do?
Speaker 4: Much?
Speaker 3: Pretty much?
Speaker 1: So that taught me a lot.
Speaker 3: It taught me how to, I guess, seek to understand first,
Speaker 3: and then you can kind of understand what they're going
Speaker 3: through or what the position is, and you can kind.
Speaker 1: Of, I guess, adapt what you want to try to say.
Speaker 3: To them, so I understand what you're saying, but also
Speaker 3: understand how it's coming across from Was that.
Speaker 1: Actual role like a conflict resolution role? I though? Was
Speaker 1: it like a part of a HR role.
Speaker 3: We sort of got moved around from department to department.
Speaker 3: I think in every one of those departments there was
Speaker 3: that engagement with other staff. I think it's a tool
Speaker 3: that they try to sort of, you know, push you
Speaker 3: into a little bit so you can kind of you
Speaker 3: need to make that to be successful. The worse, it
Speaker 3: needs better to do the people think the people stuff right.
Speaker 3: Without that, you're you're not going to be successful. So
Speaker 3: I think they were measuring me whether I was able
Speaker 3: to deal with these difficult conversations that we will have
Speaker 3: to have as senior people in the business.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty mature thing to do though, And yeah,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty it was tough, well not not any tough,
Speaker 1: like challenging, but but mature. It'd be able to work
Speaker 1: it out. Like I definitely wouldn't have been any good
Speaker 1: at that age. I just assume walk away or hit
Speaker 1: someone on the cham in those days, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean like, you know, like because I didn't get it,
Speaker 1: Like I probably lacked empathy. But would you say you're
Speaker 1: an empathetic person. I don't think I was.
Speaker 3: I now have three hundred staff or close three hundred
Speaker 3: staff who I am in charge of human resources role,
Speaker 3: I'd say I'm more empathetic now than I was before.
Speaker 3: I struggle with empathy. It's definitely something that I had
Speaker 3: to work on, and I'm continually working on that side
Speaker 3: of management of people because.
Speaker 1: That's the part of the business you run, correct, the
Speaker 1: let's call it the people and people culture, people and culture. Correct,
Speaker 1: that's mad so better something you sort of had learned.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a natural thing.
Speaker 3: Look, I've I think to be strong with the in
Speaker 3: the people and culture sector of the business. You need
Speaker 3: to be aware of what's happening around you and constantly
Speaker 3: looking at the way people are holding themselves, body language,
Speaker 3: the way they're integrating, the way they're talking. So I
Speaker 3: think that's a natural thing about me. I have kind
Speaker 3: of analyzed situations and that makes me stronger at that.
Speaker 1: As in profile, somebody correct.
Speaker 2: And he grew up in a family where you your mum,
Speaker 2: your sister's, your dad. You all talk a lot, you
Speaker 2: explain it how you're feeling. It's a communicative, communicative family.
Speaker 2: So I think you grew up in that environment where
Speaker 2: it was important to agree with each other. You don't
Speaker 2: go to bed angry, you communicate at the dinner table.
Speaker 2: So I think you had that when.
Speaker 1: You were twelve. Did you notice that about his family?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because my family's different, different of the opposite, well,
Speaker 2: not completely opposite. I'm hoping mum and dad will watch
Speaker 2: this so I don't have to slag them out too much.
Speaker 2: Different though, Yeah, Yeah, I guess for me it was
Speaker 2: seeing this family that was incredibly nurturing and wanted to
Speaker 2: know how you were going each day, rather than goal
Speaker 2: orientated or task orientated, like my family was a bit
Speaker 2: more kind of task orientated, goal orientated. How did you
Speaker 2: go at school today? What did you achieve today? Rather
Speaker 2: than are you okay? And how are you feeling?
Speaker 1: So this is a really interesting conversation that especially for
Speaker 1: your generation, like definitely interesting. For my generation, we would
Speaker 1: never think that, Like never, I mean, I got four sons,
Speaker 1: three grandsons. I still don't ask them how they feeling.
Speaker 1: Probably I should start a gettle bit more of that,
Speaker 1: And I'm just a little bit of a lesson out
Speaker 1: of this. It's sort of quite an interesting conversation. Then
Speaker 1: when I see the two of you talk to each other, well,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen you talk to each other, but when
Speaker 1: I think about the two of you talking to each other,
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, one is opposite, not opposite,
Speaker 1: but has maybe different skills to the other one.
Speaker 2: We were growing up still, and we were practicing in
Speaker 2: the office before we came here, and Dean, one of
Speaker 2: our colleagues, is like, please tell me the two of
Speaker 2: young a squabble. You're doing this.
Speaker 1: Dad a little bit, you know, like I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask it, boozmum. What depends on who?
Speaker 3: Like everyone's different rights on the person, just tells you
Speaker 3: how it is all the time, Like if I'm upset,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you which to be a way to leave
Speaker 3: blows of fuse.
Speaker 1: And just lose it.
Speaker 3: So that's everyone's mom and dad's different, right.
Speaker 5: So it's no as a twelve thirty forty, those sorts
Speaker 5: of those sort of years in your life, particularly when
Speaker 5: you're sort of hitting up a bit and you sort of,
Speaker 5: you know, change a little We all change a little
Speaker 5: bit at that period.
Speaker 1: Which one of you would have noticed that the that
Speaker 1: the other one was different to him, Like you obviously knew,
Speaker 1: you knew his family is from your family, But which
Speaker 1: one of you actually knew and what period in your
Speaker 1: life did you say, my god, he's so different to me.
Speaker 2: It ebbed and flowed. So I started at Hills in
Speaker 2: year six Hills grammar, and I had come from a
Speaker 2: Rudolph Steiner education. I don't know if you've ever heard
Speaker 2: of that, So that adjustment was pretty extreme for me.
Speaker 2: And then Warren started a year later. I had already
Speaker 2: fully settled and made some friends. I had become popular.
Speaker 2: I wasn't popular at the previous school, so I had
Speaker 2: become popular. And then you think you're popular for that year,
Speaker 2: for year seven, which is yeah, which is where? And was?
Speaker 2: It wasn't initially And so we kind of bonded initially,
Speaker 2: and then a year or two later, I wasn't so popular,
Speaker 2: had some issues at school, and was really looked after
Speaker 2: me then, so I think we kind of ebbed and
Speaker 2: flowed in terms of maturity and growth rate and who
Speaker 2: needed that support and whose feelings needed to be kind
Speaker 2: of consoled a bit more.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's mad. Did you notice that he needed?
Speaker 3: His legs were smaller than mine. We used to sit
Speaker 3: in the back of a car and I used to
Speaker 3: look at his legs on the seat and go, woy woy,
Speaker 3: your legs so small.
Speaker 1: I didn't know company. But were you much taller than much?
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit tall.
Speaker 3: He doesn't admit it, but I'm a little bit taller him.
Speaker 1: But but what do you mean him? His legs fall
Speaker 1: just like on this seat.
Speaker 3: I was just we were STEREO's eggs in the car
Speaker 3: and the way.
Speaker 2: The holidays going, Why is your legs? So I'm a
Speaker 2: basketball player. I've got long limbs, but not very stocky
Speaker 2: or strong. And was it was a rugby player and
Speaker 2: he had big thick legs.
Speaker 3: That was the first thing I noticed it was different.
Speaker 3: But apart from that, I think it took us a
Speaker 3: bit of age to realize that how different we are.
Speaker 3: I think business really taught us that is.
Speaker 1: But to directed there was But did you see that
Speaker 1: Jimmy needed a bit of a bit of a hand
Speaker 1: at one stage at school there Like he's obviously alienated
Speaker 1: somebody from doing for doing, from doing something. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can remember that.
Speaker 3: I've had a few knocks in my days in Rugby,
Speaker 3: so my younger years are a bit blurry, but I
Speaker 3: do remember stages where he struggled a little bit with
Speaker 3: some people. I'm quite of a actually mentioned my parents
Speaker 3: are quite caring family unit, so I kind of I am
Speaker 3: a caring soul.
Speaker 1: I guess that's.
Speaker 3: When I see people in need of whatever may be,
Speaker 3: often sort of there to support and be kind, I
Speaker 3: guess as much as possible.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting because I know these people exist, but
Speaker 1: I haven't met too many of them, and I'm not
Speaker 1: being smart us.
Speaker 4: And of.
Speaker 1: Where they comes from, Like is it a is it
Speaker 1: a learned behavior or is it Do you think it's
Speaker 1: a learned behavior?
Speaker 3: It's definitely I think it's genetics, it's how you are.
Speaker 1: I've got two small kids.
Speaker 3: I've got an eight and a six year old, and
Speaker 3: I can see one of the much more of my
Speaker 3: I guess it's missus, And.
Speaker 2: You don't think I don't think it's nurture.
Speaker 3: I think nurture has a part of it. But I
Speaker 3: think you're you're You're born the way you're born, and
Speaker 3: I think nurturing does either emphasize it or can minimize it,
Speaker 3: whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: But I think the chorus, the core is I believe
Speaker 1: you are who you are.
Speaker 3: Both mum and dad the same, Mum more than dad.
Speaker 3: My parents divorced when they're young, but so I live
Speaker 3: with my mum and I was sort of I grew
Speaker 3: up with her a lot more in the house on
Speaker 3: the day. Today they're both caring parents, absolutely, but Mum
Speaker 3: was definitely that kind of She's like a middle witch,
Speaker 3: you know, she's she's got extra senses. She can sort
Speaker 3: of say, I'm not sure about that guy, which we're
Speaker 3: talking about, but I'm not sure about you being our friend.
Speaker 3: She's like, I'm not sure about this guy, and I'd
Speaker 3: be like, he's fine. And then a couple years later
Speaker 3: ends up right, and that happens a lot.
Speaker 1: And Jimmy, which like so was it when his direction
Speaker 1: he went and learned about how to deal with people
Speaker 1: and did all these different parts of retailing, let's call
Speaker 1: it with woolies. What did you do? What was different
Speaker 1: about what your before?
Speaker 2: I just want to touch on when we're twelve, was
Speaker 2: his mum hesle your lunch.
Speaker 1: He did.
Speaker 2: Actually used to see my T shirts too, And I
Speaker 2: cheated at school with you as well off me. Sorry
Speaker 2: he cheated off.
Speaker 1: Me, he looked.
Speaker 2: When we're twelve, that's from his mum said to him.
Speaker 2: That guy there, he's a keeper, he's amazing so and
Speaker 2: she turned out to be true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's wrong once.
Speaker 1: It's funny. When I was a kid, we had an
Speaker 1: ida made a school called white Bed. My best friend
Speaker 1: at school, Whitey, and all the moments used to love
Speaker 1: him because we used to go. I had another made
Speaker 1: padstone mus to go. I remember one time were there
Speaker 1: and his mom, Pat Bracken's mum was saying that Steve
Speaker 1: was like an angel. He still is, like he's angelic.
Speaker 1: He's so nice, you know, And then I heard I
Speaker 1: was just standing there with a cannabier man and I
Speaker 1: heard her say, yeah, but Mark, he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of the devil in him. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: never forgot that conversation. You just reminded me of it.
Speaker 1: I just it was something that rang in my ears.
Speaker 1: At that age. I was only like seventeen, drinking beers.
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't have been, but I was. But the
Speaker 1: reality of the situation is Whitey used to drink more
Speaker 1: beers than me, smoke more joints than me, and you
Speaker 1: used to get up to more mischief than me. Like
Speaker 1: the actual fact I knew I wasn't that bad. And
Speaker 1: something like that can be quite crushing when you get
Speaker 1: told that you you know, when you hear a parents
Speaker 1: say that you were the devil. So I imagine when
Speaker 1: you find out that his mom said that you're a keeper,
Speaker 1: that you must have felt somewhat elevated, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty special because his mum's obviously, you know, just jumping.
Speaker 1: She's up there, up there on the cross of Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: Like she sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 2: I think it was uncomfortable at first because my family
Speaker 2: doesn't openly talk about how you're feeling. So have some
Speaker 2: strange woman at the time kind of go, you know,
Speaker 2: how are you precious? And come in and let me
Speaker 2: feed you and I love you and all I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is quite intense. Was your mum's pretty full on here?
Speaker 2: He's like, no, it's normal. So it took a bit
Speaker 2: of while to get used to and then obviously you
Speaker 2: get used to it and you love it.
Speaker 3: Put it this way, my mum met my wife now
Speaker 3: for the first time in the car on the way
Speaker 3: for me to get a shoulder reconstruction, and she asked
Speaker 3: her to sing to her in the car. That was
Speaker 3: their first engage with.
Speaker 1: My wife's a test.
Speaker 3: I'm not too sure what it was, but it's pretty
Speaker 3: awkward for my wife to start seeing she's in the arts,
Speaker 3: but it was pretty embarrassing. That's sort of that's my
Speaker 3: mum in a nutshell. She'll try to make you feel
Speaker 3: as uncomfortable but comfortablet the same time.
Speaker 1: As soon as she meets you, we should have it.
Speaker 1: Get So what did you do Jimmy after.
Speaker 2: The similar to was I loved sport. I was into
Speaker 2: basketball growing up and I loved PDHP at school, so
Speaker 2: I always wanted to kind of pursue that Avenue, Someway,
Speaker 2: and I had always intended to go to UNI. I
Speaker 2: was going to go to A and U in Canberra
Speaker 2: to do sports broadcast journalism. But I made a basketball
Speaker 2: team that I wanted to stick it through. So I
Speaker 2: went to Western Sydney and did sports medicine and I
Speaker 2: fucking ate it. It was just boring. My family had originally
Speaker 2: grown up in and around the Bankstown area, but now
Speaker 2: we'd moved over to Glenorya. I was sort of driving
Speaker 2: over there every day and I didn't enjoy the commute,
Speaker 2: and I didn't enjoy the university, but I stuck it out.
Speaker 2: It was a three year course, and then by the
Speaker 2: end of UNI WAS, I said, I've had enough of
Speaker 2: retail management. Let's pack our bags and go traveling. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of wow. We're twenty one. I'd finish UNI
Speaker 2: WAS there, had three years at working but not enjoying
Speaker 2: it really, so we kind of packed our bags and
Speaker 2: off we went.
Speaker 1: Well, that decision just that's a big deal, that decision
Speaker 1: to leave, in your case, not to start a career
Speaker 1: and leave finishing off what you just finished off, and
Speaker 1: you leaving a career.
Speaker 2: It wasn't really a spur of the moment decision though
Speaker 2: we'd sort of talked about it for a long time
Speaker 2: and the plan kind of always was that when I
Speaker 2: finished UNI, let's go and see the world. This was
Speaker 2: two thousand and one. We'd planned to go to America,
Speaker 2: and obviously September eleven happened, so we kind of changed
Speaker 2: our plans. Then we had a third mate that joined us.
Speaker 2: He was very spur of the moment, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: like an epiphany, life changing kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It has been planned. So you decided, well, when the
Speaker 1: opportunity rises, we're going to get When you say spoiler,
Speaker 1: what what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Like the most scumbag Aussies you stick a backpack on
Speaker 2: and you go and travel around the world. That was
Speaker 2: that was about what.
Speaker 1: Was it you're trying to experience? What were you trying
Speaker 1: to We had no idea. Yeah, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it anyway. We're going to do it. It's just
Speaker 1: like just curiosity. Let's go travel, right, was you on
Speaker 1: a passage? We do that? People have done it. We're
Speaker 1: going to do the same thing. Ye going to get
Speaker 1: a backpack on and we're going to go somewhere.
Speaker 3: So where'd you go where Japan for On the way
Speaker 3: to the Youth, I was random, Well, we're supposed to
Speaker 3: go to the States, as Jimmy said, September eleventh happened,
Speaker 3: so I had to do a quick last minute divert.
Speaker 3: So we went to Japan, which is incredible, only there
Speaker 3: for about three or four weeks.
Speaker 1: But what did you what did you culturally?
Speaker 2: We were supposed to be there for two months. I'd
Speaker 2: studied Japanese at school and loved the culture from what
Speaker 2: I knew. But yeah, we got there and we were traveling,
Speaker 2: and we spent a year's worth of money in two
Speaker 2: and a half weeks because it was so expensive, and we.
Speaker 1: Drank a lot.
Speaker 2: Twenty one year old kids had no idea about money
Speaker 2: as well. That was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Have you been, Yeah, so what did you experience it?
Speaker 1: Because I'm trying to work out what you've taken back
Speaker 1: into your business from Japan. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing that I remember most. We flew into Tokyo.
Speaker 2: We got straight on the shin consent and went up
Speaker 2: to a little town called Tuzzi Waka, which was on
Speaker 2: the most northern part of the main island, and then
Speaker 2: we walked through the snow with our backpacks to the
Speaker 2: youth hostel because we couldn't decipher how to get any
Speaker 2: other means to the hostel, and we couldn't work out
Speaker 2: the vending machines, we couldn't speak the language, we had
Speaker 2: a little phrase book, couldn't order food, and eventually we
Speaker 2: kind of went down to little cafetier and cafeteria and
Speaker 2: we're trying to get some food and this woman who
Speaker 2: was probably seventies or eighties came over and ordered some
Speaker 2: food for us, and she'd ordered a long Necker beer
Speaker 2: and she gave us poured out the beer, and she said,
Speaker 2: I'm just so happy that you are traveling in my country,
Speaker 2: and I just want to show you some hospitality. And
Speaker 2: that was probably the first time that that kind of
Speaker 2: term of hospitality was really shown to us. That it's
Speaker 2: not about getting someone fed or pissed. It's about welcoming
Speaker 2: them into your space and giving them an experience. And
Speaker 2: this woman was just doing it because she was so
Speaker 2: proud of her country that three random Aussie white dudes
Speaker 2: were traveling and wanted to see it and she was
Speaker 2: proud of it.
Speaker 3: And that's Japan, as you know you've been there. That
Speaker 3: just the hospital. Hospitality in Japan is second to none.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of our core values, which I'm sure we'll talk about,
Speaker 3: is you know, desire to create an experience and that
Speaker 3: comes from within and you can't teach that.
Speaker 1: It's natural. We have it, you don't have it.
Speaker 3: It's just disingraem with them.
Speaker 1: So when you when you if you think back to
Speaker 1: that experience, now, what maybe three words or something? What
Speaker 1: three things? Maybe maybe you say two? But are there
Speaker 1: three words could describe it? Not a phrase but like
Speaker 1: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but
Speaker 1: that moment, if you think back of what did you well?
Speaker 2: It was kind of I felt humbled that somebody was
Speaker 2: so willing to take time out of her She was
Speaker 2: traveling herself, she didn't know us, she didn't know us anything.
Speaker 2: She just wanted to spend time with us for nothing
Speaker 2: in return. That was the kind of So you were surprised, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I mean I've just felt small and humbled. It
Speaker 2: is probably the first thing.
Speaker 3: How good is how good is this moment? Do you
Speaker 3: know mean by that? Like how would you go to
Speaker 3: a venue or a place you just look at your
Speaker 3: mate and go how good is this? And it's those
Speaker 3: moments that it's not just about either the food or drink,
Speaker 3: it's the whole environment. It's like it's just something it
Speaker 3: feels right, How good is this? Is just those moments
Speaker 3: you have which we've tried to replicate in all avenues.
Speaker 1: Because I want to go through the values that you
Speaker 1: have in your venues at a moment, because because I'm
Speaker 1: obviously you traveled, you probably experienced similar sort of experience
Speaker 1: similar events in other places around the world on your travels,
Speaker 1: and I guess I should before I get to deep
Speaker 1: into the value part. When did you decide the two
Speaker 1: of you to go into hospitality?
Speaker 3: Then after this trip, well in this ship, so we
Speaker 3: actually from Japan went to the UK and we've actually
Speaker 3: we went through London. We ended up in Edinburgh and
Speaker 3: that's where we based ourselves in Scotland and Scotland and
Speaker 3: we weren't get originally work at hospitality at or Jimmy
Speaker 3: when I worked at a pool because it's sort of
Speaker 3: aligned with his with his sports, and I wasn't unemployed,
Speaker 3: and I only wake up to the point where I
Speaker 3: had to find a job, and I knew someone who
Speaker 3: was working in a company called Montpelliers, which is a
Speaker 3: decent hospitality company in Scotland. And I went for a
Speaker 3: job and then start off as the bottom run glassy,
Speaker 3: just washing glasses and so forth, and just over the
Speaker 3: next couple of months just stepped up and stepped up
Speaker 3: in two rolls and I was coming home five in
Speaker 3: the morning after having a pretty good night. He'd begin
Speaker 3: up at five in the morning and he's.
Speaker 2: Like going to the gym to go this This is
Speaker 2: not right. It wasn't it wasn't right.
Speaker 1: Something's wrong with this party or this picture. So he's like,
Speaker 1: how do.
Speaker 3: I get a job or you're doing Yeah, at least
Speaker 3: have a job at the same place.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: So he went same company, but different venue, and we
Speaker 3: just gradually worked our way up and ended up running
Speaker 3: one of the one of their venues, and he.
Speaker 1: Ran one of the venues in Scotland.
Speaker 3: We were there for four years, ended up running Indigo Yard,
Speaker 3: which is one of the big venues in Scotland. And
Speaker 3: after that came home. So hospitality was it was in
Speaker 3: my blood then half those four you.
Speaker 1: But when you came home, did you just both you
Speaker 1: guys set up a business together.
Speaker 3: Well, I came home a few years before him. He
Speaker 3: found his now wife in the UK and moved back
Speaker 3: to London and did some design stuff. And when I
Speaker 3: got back to Sydney, the Sydney.
Speaker 1: Hospitality scene was a disgrace.
Speaker 3: We've been in two thousand and four, two thousand and five, right,
Speaker 3: so you're talking, you know, big establishments, no customer service,
Speaker 3: just about making the bottom line, making the dollar and
Speaker 3: removing you what you've had your skin full, whereas we
Speaker 3: came from the UK with.
Speaker 1: The hospital is part of the culture, right, It's part
Speaker 1: of the part of the day.
Speaker 3: Today you go to the pub in the afternoon, you
Speaker 3: have a point with your friends, you know the bartender.
Speaker 1: And it's part of your lifestyle. So I rang had.
Speaker 3: Said, Mane, this is disgrace. Our home is city is
Speaker 3: just it's not what This as a shock to us.
Speaker 3: It was a shock to me, and I said, we've
Speaker 3: got to do something here. We have to do something.
Speaker 3: We can't just we have to bring what we've learned
Speaker 3: back into into Sydney and create something special that we
Speaker 3: can emulate all we've experienced.
Speaker 1: Now you had you have a conversation about email or
Speaker 1: something on the blowout phone.
Speaker 3: And he always wanted to work next to me because
Speaker 3: we push each other. So he always wanted to open
Speaker 3: a restaurant next to me or a bar next to me,
Speaker 3: so we'd actually push each other to be better. So
Speaker 3: it's a little bit of convincing there to me say no,
Speaker 3: we should do it together.
Speaker 2: Not a separate, which was a good decision. Obviously this
Speaker 2: is now twenty years later, and.
Speaker 1: So do you remember what was your first venue? First thing?
Speaker 3: He was Grandma's. So Grandma's Bar was a tiny little
Speaker 3: cocktail bar. Was one of the first small bars to
Speaker 3: open under the new license. So before the small bar
Speaker 3: legislation came through, you know, you're talking sixty seventy one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars for a lique license and they dropped
Speaker 3: it to five hundred bucks. It had to be small
Speaker 3: and had to sort of only trade it with a
Speaker 3: certain amount hours. So we were one of those first
Speaker 3: small bars, and we called it Grandma's Why, well, what's
Speaker 3: your grandma's house? Like, it's the opposite of what the
Speaker 3: city hospitality scene was. It's welcoming, it's your home away,
Speaker 3: it's a highway from home. It's engaging, it's warm, you know,
Speaker 3: place that you want to be. And we used to
Speaker 3: just say hello and goodbye to guests when they walked in,
Speaker 3: and the people woul look at us like are you
Speaker 3: guys crazy?
Speaker 1: Like low to me?
Speaker 2: So as you walk into it, they see something in this,
Speaker 2: but honestly look at you like you're a weirdo, and
Speaker 2: why are you talking to me? I've never met you before.
Speaker 3: And it just took it took off, and people like this,
Speaker 3: you know, they were busy, and we had lines at
Speaker 3: the door from five in the afternoon until until ten
Speaker 3: at night, pretty much six or seven, six days a week.
Speaker 3: So that was our first and it was small. We
Speaker 3: had to killed each other because it was like a
Speaker 3: fifty sixty square meter space. And then we went to
Speaker 3: open the rover after that.
Speaker 1: And so let's just tell me. And I don't know
Speaker 1: Grandma's because I'm not really out there, goune of bars,
Speaker 1: So tell me where Grandma's is.
Speaker 3: Grandma's is now closed. It was on Clarence Street, Clarence.
Speaker 3: It's closed because the building is being demolished for another
Speaker 3: building site.
Speaker 1: We had it for twelve years.
Speaker 2: Twenty ten we opened and we left two thirteen, yeah, Augusta.
Speaker 1: And the second one, the Rover's still there.
Speaker 3: SAT's down at Sarry Hills on Campbell Street. It was
Speaker 3: the Wild Rover and then we've rebranded into the Rover.
Speaker 3: We kind of opened venues where we are in our
Speaker 3: lives and it has sort of what is it was
Speaker 3: important to us at that time we kind of there's
Speaker 3: that influence behind that each space.
Speaker 1: So what's what what what does the Rover Bar represent
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 3: Well, the Wild Rover when I first opened, was that
Speaker 3: that was you opened up the Wild rd correct, we
Speaker 3: opened the World Rover and it was like swashbuckling foot
Speaker 3: stomping Irish Ginners, you know, that kind of quite loud
Speaker 3: rip in the kind.
Speaker 2: Of space the venue seem to represent where we are
Speaker 2: in our life, so Grandma's, we've been traveling. We love
Speaker 2: that intimate small cocktail scene. We love the interaction with
Speaker 2: the guests and the banter. Then we did really well
Speaker 2: out of that. We built it ourselves. We had a
Speaker 2: little bit of money now in the bank, so then
Speaker 2: we wanted to kind of show what we could do.
Speaker 2: So the Rover was a little bit bigger, it was
Speaker 2: built a little bit better. We actually had someone else
Speaker 2: build the bar rather than us. It was a little
Speaker 2: bit flashier. It was a little bit louder, you know,
Speaker 2: we were a little bit more confident now so and
Speaker 2: then as we've sort of evolved over the years, we
Speaker 2: keep adding layers and emotion that kind of suit where
Speaker 2: we're at in our life. So the Rover we would
Speaker 2: settle with our partners. We still were kid free, we
Speaker 2: were mortgage free, living a good life, and we wanted
Speaker 2: to kind of show that through our venues.
Speaker 1: So you're still in your twenties, we are, No, we're in.
Speaker 2: Our thirty So we opened yeah, no, we opened Grandmas
Speaker 2: when we were thirty.
Speaker 1: Right when you're thirty. Yeah. So then what happened after
Speaker 1: the Wild Rover?
Speaker 3: So after over, we decided to open a venue in
Speaker 3: Boomin called Wilhelmina's. So we sort of wanted to get
Speaker 3: our way from that.
Speaker 2: Sort of We're now married and I've got a kid
Speaker 2: on the way, so let's let's go for urbans.
Speaker 1: Pretty, let's go suburban.
Speaker 3: But you kept the River could still still trading today.
Speaker 3: We've rebranded too. We've lost the world. We can get
Speaker 3: back to that in a second. But we opened a
Speaker 3: place called Willeminas and Baomain and we really love that
Speaker 3: kind of neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Out of the Hassenbus of the city.
Speaker 3: We had it for a few years and we ended
Speaker 3: up selling it and the main reason for that was
Speaker 3: I guess our model is as a company for mine
Speaker 3: James's perspective. You know, we come up with a great concept,
Speaker 3: is a great concept. We travel, we go overseas, we
Speaker 3: we really deep dive into that concept and we really
Speaker 3: try to analyze and nuts out the true authenticity behind it.
Speaker 3: And then we come back with Sydney to dies it.
Speaker 3: So we we make that market to what we what
Speaker 3: we can what we'll work in Sydney because obviously we're
Speaker 3: an individual market. And then we put all the infrastructure
Speaker 3: we know, we get the concept of and running. We're
Speaker 3: in there day and night, one hundred hour weeks, get
Speaker 3: that concept squeaky clean, and then we start to sort
Speaker 3: of back out in a way of we get the
Speaker 3: management team in who's then start to run that so
Speaker 3: we can then grow the business. But the thing with
Speaker 3: a local neighborhood venue like Will and Means is the
Speaker 3: locals want to see the owner, right You want to
Speaker 3: see the pizza guy who is your mate, Frank, He's
Speaker 3: making the pizza every day but when we left, they're
Speaker 3: like always Warren a James squad. We're like, oh, they're
Speaker 3: on the next day.
Speaker 4: Like make the money correct, Well, no, there was no money,
Speaker 4: so we have to go back in again because we'd
Speaker 4: have to go because the business started to drop with
Speaker 4: a new will admit is but to go back, We'll
Speaker 4: go back in again.
Speaker 2: When we still had it. So when when was it
Speaker 2: says we sort of step out. We're not selling it off.
Speaker 2: It's still ours. We just employ a manager. All of
Speaker 2: our venues have a management structure under them or sorry,
Speaker 2: we employ managers to run them and we oversee them.
Speaker 2: So but when we weren't there, the local customers were like,
Speaker 2: where's where's Jimy and Wave. We've come to know them.
Speaker 2: They know what our drink is. The manager doesn't know
Speaker 2: this they and so they stopped coming.
Speaker 1: So is that a lesson for you there that in
Speaker 1: terms of building a business or a brand, you've got
Speaker 1: to it's better to divorce yourself from the brand to
Speaker 1: make the band or ubiquitous.
Speaker 2: No, not at all, certainly not for us. We've never
Speaker 2: made we've never tried to make the brand about us personally.
Speaker 2: We're not we're not the stars of the ship.
Speaker 1: Or a chef. We don't hire celebrity chefs to come
Speaker 1: in because that's so that is a lesson, So don't
Speaker 1: make the place attached to you.
Speaker 2: But I guess the lesson for this was for our
Speaker 2: business model. Subs probably aren't the right location for that
Speaker 2: type of environment.
Speaker 1: Because in the suburb, the locals are expecting to see
Speaker 1: someone knows local that is crer joint, which you too.
Speaker 1: So in other words, a local brand usually requires having
Speaker 1: a local person it needs, whereas a city brand can
Speaker 1: have you biquitous, it can be anybody. Because the people
Speaker 1: go to that venue to go to the venue, they
Speaker 1: probably go to the local venue to see Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and that's not what we wanted we want to have.
Speaker 1: It's also restrictive because you can't expand that's not you
Speaker 1: can't have more mine venue.
Speaker 2: And we learned from Grandma's, which was the same sort
Speaker 2: of size as your studio, that we can't function with
Speaker 2: who we are as people in that smaller space. We
Speaker 2: need more space to roam. We're two confident, arrogant, cocky,
Speaker 2: stubborn personalities that just were headbutting constantly in that small space.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go the bakin. When I come back
Speaker 1: from the break, I want to talk about the balance
Speaker 1: of your venues, but I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about your values and what you've learned from traveling, which
Speaker 1: you learned from experience, experiencing each other's families, and how
Speaker 1: those things have bled into your business, both at a
Speaker 1: staff level and probably more importantly, a customer level. So
Speaker 1: go to the break, comes straight back. I'm back from
Speaker 1: the break, and I'm here with Warren warser Burns. Actually
Speaker 1: that's very Scottish name by it is James Jimmy Bradley.
Speaker 1: Probably not Scottish, but it doesn't matter. Something like that
Speaker 1: be English or something. And of course you know you're
Speaker 1: the co founders of Liquid and Larder. But we've just
Speaker 1: gone through some of your venues, and you've got lots
Speaker 1: of more venues. So can you just top us off
Speaker 1: with how many venues you currently have. I know you
Speaker 1: got one you want to talk about. We'll leave that
Speaker 1: one aside from the moment a new one, but let's
Speaker 1: just talk about what your venues are, what venues you
Speaker 1: guys have established over the years. So we've got we've
Speaker 1: got the first two Grandma's Grandma's the Rover first first three,
Speaker 1: I should say, so it went Grandma's was the Wild Rover,
Speaker 1: now the Rover. We then opened Wilhelmina's in Balmain. There
Speaker 1: was a period of time where we split the premises
Speaker 1: in two and had half as Willelmina's, which was a
Speaker 1: wine bar, and half we split into a new brand
Speaker 1: called Burgerhood, which was a burger restaurant. Then in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen we opened the Stecca, which was kind of our
Speaker 1: first rocket to success for argument's sake. So that's one
Speaker 1: in the city there up towards George Street, Bridge Street. Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's downstairs.
Speaker 3: You get downstairs, correct, only serving one cut of meat
Speaker 3: they carve it.
Speaker 1: You walk in there and you get in these stairs
Speaker 1: and there's a bar at the first thing agin and
Speaker 1: there's there's a bar, but you go outside, so you
Speaker 1: go inside and there's another area. So I went there
Speaker 1: with Jeff Anik when a few times, yeah, Jeff Whites
Speaker 1: are there. Yeah, it's a state joint.
Speaker 2: It is correct.
Speaker 1: That's a bestick of means, I guess, but he likes
Speaker 1: it and I liked it to I went there, went
Speaker 1: there for lunch with him something happens, something happened there
Speaker 1: that I can't remember what it was, but it's some
Speaker 1: rule you have or so take your phone away. That's right.
Speaker 3: We don't have any phones in both our Dinarostka and
Speaker 3: our next venue, which Jimmy will explain this bit of it.
Speaker 3: Don't know any phones in the dining.
Speaker 1: Room anyway, in the dining room. So that's what it was.
Speaker 1: It was I thought for study that they made me
Speaker 1: take me shoes off. You were something pretty important.
Speaker 2: It touched on the about the brand, and that is
Speaker 2: a really good point for us, is our venues and
Speaker 2: our brand as a company is about experience orientated dining
Speaker 2: and drinking. It's not just about giving you something to
Speaker 2: eat or drink, and removing someone's phone.
Speaker 1: Is key to that.
Speaker 2: Particularly for the Stecca. It's got no windows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's rights sort of underground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you walk through some fire stairs into a dark
Speaker 2: bar and then round the corner threw another door into
Speaker 2: a lighter dining space. I remember that, so it's a
Speaker 2: little bit disorientated. I did feel that like a casino.
Speaker 2: There's no clocks on the wall, you don't know what
Speaker 2: time it is, and then we remove your phone so
Speaker 2: you deprived of your most important sensory experience.
Speaker 1: I let you take my phone. You don't have to.
Speaker 3: I don't think I did.
Speaker 1: I think, but I definitely didn't turn it on. I
Speaker 1: turned it off. I respected the request, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember actually issuing my phone to anybody.
Speaker 3: So with Bisteka, we went to travel through itly obviously
Speaker 3: to dive in that concert. And we went dinner one
Speaker 3: night and we're on our phones. We used to do
Speaker 3: our reviews on our phones for the restaurants so we
Speaker 3: can could of take notes, and we had this norna
Speaker 3: across the restaurant.
Speaker 1: A grandma just stare at us, like what are you
Speaker 1: doing on your phone?
Speaker 2: Really phone came over and just yelled at us.
Speaker 1: Obnestly.
Speaker 2: She came over as like like Italian, Yeah, kind of
Speaker 2: along the lines of you're in Monte Puciano. We're at
Speaker 2: a restaurant called Aquakata. There's a guy up there hacking
Speaker 2: at this big beast. It was so atmospheric, and we're
Speaker 2: they're both on our phones. I think we're probably squabbling
Speaker 2: with each other as well about something, and she's like.
Speaker 1: Get off your sound like the odd couple, you know,
Speaker 1: she's like, get off your.
Speaker 2: Phone, And so we got off the phone and then
Speaker 2: we just sort of, you know, put her head up
Speaker 2: so we could breathe a little and look around, and
Speaker 2: we're like, oh.
Speaker 3: We made a pack for the rest of that trip.
Speaker 3: No phones the dining room table.
Speaker 1: That's cool.
Speaker 3: It's on the way back on the plane. We're like,
Speaker 3: we why don't we try and bring that into sand
Speaker 3: And has that worked well? When I first time my wife,
Speaker 3: she's like, you got to be joking.
Speaker 1: Me, because people want to take selfies and stuff, take
Speaker 1: the food.
Speaker 3: Look, I say, eighty per cent of people hand their
Speaker 3: phone over without even.
Speaker 1: A question generation about what younger people.
Speaker 2: The younger people actually sights.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the first nights I had, a mature lady
Speaker 2: dressed me down like I was a student at school,
Speaker 2: and she said, excuse me, I will monitor my own behavior.
Speaker 2: I won't have you, young man tell me how to behave.
Speaker 3: It's eighty percent of people no problems, you know. The
Speaker 3: fifteen percent of people I like, hesitant, they give it
Speaker 3: to you, but they actually really enjoyed not having the
Speaker 3: phone with them. And then a five percent of people
Speaker 3: you get addressing down.
Speaker 1: And then when you when she'd reress you down what was.
Speaker 2: Shut myself and let her keep the phone. But initially
Speaker 2: when we did it at dinner, we were very hard.
Speaker 2: You know, you're coming in for dinner, it's a social occasion,
Speaker 2: but gentle them in advance on the website.
Speaker 1: But you don't send an email confuming bookings. And by
Speaker 1: the way, there are no fucking telephones.
Speaker 2: When you're in the bar area. Do what you want.
Speaker 2: Come through the dining area. We take it away. And
Speaker 2: at dinner we would sort of say, look, we understand,
Speaker 2: you know, if you've got a babysitter and you need
Speaker 2: to hit your phone, we get it right, but try
Speaker 2: and remove your phones. But for lunch, initially we were like,
Speaker 2: people are doing business, We're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that was me, I have to check my
Speaker 1: phone for stuff going.
Speaker 2: What ended up happening is we would we get a
Speaker 2: lot of finance building sector because we were located, come
Speaker 2: in and they would hand over their phones because they're
Speaker 2: they're doing a deal with someone at the table, and
Speaker 2: it was actually a great place for them to do this,
Speaker 2: have this conversation because they weren't getting distracted or their
Speaker 2: client wasn't getting distracted by the phone, and they were
Speaker 2: able to connect on a more personal level and quite
Speaker 2: often do quite a good deal at the table.
Speaker 1: We did a shifty blade bring in a woman in
Speaker 1: there they shouldn't be with it, or a bloke comment
Speaker 1: because they're not going to get their photograph taken, a
Speaker 1: sneak gup, we get down to the bottom of the basement.
Speaker 1: A mistake, but it's hot in the corner.
Speaker 2: It's more about making them. I think we're time precious
Speaker 2: as a society now, so it's making people able to
Speaker 2: enjoy the experience of who they're dining with, whether it's
Speaker 2: business or family or whatever it might be. So they're
Speaker 2: able to enjoy the environment. And we've made the environment
Speaker 2: at Bisteca, and then the next one we sort of
Speaker 2: took the idea into the Gidley and did it again
Speaker 2: because we wanted people to enjoy the experience that we
Speaker 2: were trying to put forward to them.
Speaker 1: Where's the Gidley. It's on King Street in the CBD
Speaker 1: as well, and what's the theme there? What it will
Speaker 1: be doing about the SEC is a steak joint, but what's.
Speaker 2: More of an American steak joint, So a little bit
Speaker 2: more lush, plush. We broadened the menu out so Besteca
Speaker 2: only does t Bone the Gidley kind of heroes the Ribbi,
Speaker 2: but there is other things.
Speaker 1: On offer or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again, like I said, we jumped on a plane.
Speaker 2: We went to New York. We went to all the
Speaker 2: famous steakhouses and old school bars and kind of drew
Speaker 2: all the inspiration of what makes these institutions iconic, you know,
Speaker 2: all the little details about how they serve a martini
Speaker 2: or how they present food, or how they serve at
Speaker 2: table side down to simple things like we're walking in
Speaker 2: a place and we ordered a couple of drinks and
Speaker 2: the waiters walking past and we'd finished our drink and
Speaker 2: they're like, don't worry, I got you. Like that kind
Speaker 2: of acknowledgment that you need something better.
Speaker 1: Pretty good that way, it's I got you because they're
Speaker 1: looking for the tip. But they're smart. They're working out
Speaker 1: pretty fast. Well what were they a little best known for?
Speaker 1: Like into the food.
Speaker 2: For example, currently, we've just been awarded ninth best burger
Speaker 2: in the world. Wow, so we are getting inundated with
Speaker 2: people coming in for a burger. We're also one of
Speaker 2: the best takeaway sit down, So sit down, burger. It's
Speaker 2: a luxe deck about it.
Speaker 1: Telling me to describe it, it made my mouth water.
Speaker 2: Are you a burger guy?
Speaker 1: I love meat?
Speaker 2: Honestly, I would say you need to go to the
Speaker 2: Gidli twice then, because you go into the lounge and
Speaker 2: have the burger, you go into the dining room and
Speaker 2: have the full experience. But the burger is a little
Speaker 2: bit over the top. We wanted to bring that silver
Speaker 2: service element to what's normally served at the corner store
Speaker 2: and your local kind of fish and chippy. So we
Speaker 2: use our own meat that we've aged at Alfie's, which
Speaker 2: is the next venue that we've opened. So we ate
Speaker 2: our own meat. We use that which gives a really
Speaker 2: rich kind of decadent taste to the paddy. A briosh
Speaker 2: bun which is sweeter, or milk bun, milk milk bun.
Speaker 2: But I guess the silver service side of it is
Speaker 2: body additions.
Speaker 1: So you've got like it well, So double paddy sets.
Speaker 3: Of cheese American cheese obviously, and you can order a
Speaker 3: side of bacon which is a honey smoke bacon or
Speaker 3: maple smoke bacon sorry, or and an egg.
Speaker 1: So if not on not on the burger.
Speaker 3: Yes, you you can create it on the burger. So
Speaker 3: the standard burger burger, and we make.
Speaker 6: A little source with it, so we actually pick up,
Speaker 6: we wear a white glove, we carve the the egg,
Speaker 6: and we actually silver over the burger to make it
Speaker 6: kind of a bit more of a of a of
Speaker 6: a decades burger.
Speaker 1: Yes, you see, you're trying to deliver decadence correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a burger, Which that's cool, that's very cool. I
Speaker 1: will definitely try that. I definitely would try that one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. And they get some chips or something like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they sort of well, actually shake shake fries.
Speaker 3: So you get them in a brown paper bag, you
Speaker 3: add your own season and you shake shake away.
Speaker 1: And by sort we're doing about French fries. French French fries,
Speaker 1: A French fries. We're very American. I like French fries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so, that's the Gidley. That's the Gidly. So and
Speaker 1: if you if you were to described the experience apart
Speaker 1: from the food, what's the experience experientially like apart from
Speaker 1: the getting like watching all this stuff happen, like I
Speaker 1: guess they get to see the dude with the white
Speaker 1: gloves and or the plow.
Speaker 2: And the hands off ch astronomy. I guess is what
Speaker 2: we like one for nothing. You We want you to
Speaker 2: come in there and not have to kind of wish
Speaker 2: that there was something that you needed. So anything you need,
Speaker 2: anything you want, hopefully we're providing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And what about the theater of it all? I mean,
Speaker 1: because you got you've got the besteck, we sort of
Speaker 1: there's a bit of theater going or a dark so
Speaker 1: you go in these mad stairs and then you walk
Speaker 1: into the bar my memory of it, I haven't been
Speaker 1: for years, the pre covid and then go to another
Speaker 1: room which is a bit lighter than the bar, because
Speaker 1: I thought, where am I this dark joint here? What's
Speaker 1: going on here? But I saw all these suits in there,
Speaker 1: guys standing with suits, so though one must be okay.
Speaker 1: And then went out of the back and it was good.
Speaker 1: It was a nice state. The state was good. There's
Speaker 1: some theater in that. What about the Ghili theater It's it's.
Speaker 2: Kind of set up like a members club, So the
Speaker 2: front door has very little signage on it and there
Speaker 2: is a pressed enter button, so you press the button
Speaker 2: and someone will release the catch on the door and
Speaker 2: you come down and you're greeted by the host welcomes
Speaker 2: you to the lounge area. The lounge is set up
Speaker 2: like someone's decad an apartment, so it's got a bar
Speaker 2: in there, but there's no bar counter, so you know
Speaker 2: you can go most bars, the bartender is behind at
Speaker 2: the bar, and so there's that element of separation. This
Speaker 2: is one open room, so you feel like you were
Speaker 2: able to wander.
Speaker 1: A club like a club.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so it's all open. You're able to walk
Speaker 2: right up to the counter where the bartender is making
Speaker 2: the drinks and feel like you're in someone's decad and apartment.
Speaker 2: So that's part one. It's all very plush and intimate.
Speaker 2: The rooms are all separated, so there's a bit of
Speaker 2: kind of intimacy with the space. You move through to
Speaker 2: the dining area. There's only eleven tables. There's plenty of staff,
Speaker 2: but they're not kind of hovering over the top of you.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of that want for nothing service with
Speaker 2: the food, but dial down so it's not stiff and
Speaker 2: stuffy and boring. There's like with the silver service of
Speaker 2: the burger, it's kind of taking the piss a little bit.
Speaker 2: You don't need to put a glove on and cut
Speaker 2: a burger, but it just adds that theater. So there's
Speaker 2: elements of that with all the food that we serve,
Speaker 2: or it might be a table side martini that we
Speaker 2: bring out which comes on a tray with all the
Speaker 2: accoutrement that you can kind of customize yourself. And then
Speaker 2: we've got a bunch of other rooms that are all
Speaker 2: semi private or private rooms. So we've got a private
Speaker 2: room which has full soundproofing, TV audio facilities. People have
Speaker 2: end of year spreadsheet presentations or other ones where they
Speaker 2: accidentally let go of balloons that cover the CCTV cameras accidentally,
Speaker 2: of course. And then one of the other rooms is
Speaker 2: the poker room, so we've got a private game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got a private poker room. At the back. We'll
Speaker 2: bring in a professional croup here. It's got a full
Speaker 2: size professional table. It's set for dinner, so you have
Speaker 2: dinner on top and then we lift the top off
Speaker 2: and that reveals the poker table. So again very very
Speaker 2: experience experiential.
Speaker 1: Yeah sounds cool, that sounds cool. Licensing police don't listen
Speaker 1: to that part of it.
Speaker 3: Fight as long as the house doesn't make any money. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so we don't make any money off of they do well.
Speaker 3: They want to be they want to bet amount.
Speaker 1: Each other, that's perfectly.
Speaker 3: But I'm taking it's only when you're when the chips
Speaker 3: are worth a dollar value that it's an issue.
Speaker 1: Whereas ships are free that you just supply the venue,
Speaker 1: just play correct and the drinks and the food. They
Speaker 1: can play. They can play for the money, they can
Speaker 1: play for whatever they want. But with us, they can
Speaker 1: play for countries. So okay. So and where did you
Speaker 1: see this concept in the US, this particular concept.
Speaker 2: So, I mean New York has plenty of steakhouses. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, Keanes and Peter Lugas are probably two of
Speaker 2: the more famous ones. They're huge. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've been to either of them.
Speaker 1: I've been to. I have been to a steakhouse, a
Speaker 1: famous one in New York, but I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of it. It's not Simpsons. There's there's a place
Speaker 1: called Simpsons in London and I've been to. I can
Speaker 1: remember the name of the joint in it's like got
Speaker 1: a so like a Jewish sort of name of the
Speaker 1: place in New York that I went to. I got
Speaker 1: taken there by some but.
Speaker 2: There is lots of them. Yeah, we went to one
Speaker 2: which was called for Charles, which we kind of went
Speaker 2: It was in Greenwich. We went down these little stairs
Speaker 2: through some curtains and we were kind of almost rudely
Speaker 2: abruptly served in a cheeky, funny manner by these staff
Speaker 2: and then taken to our table. It wasn't until a
Speaker 2: nine thirty booking. We normally are in bed by nine thirty,
Speaker 2: so by that point we'd had a few blasts of
Speaker 2: the wine maybe, so the memories are a little bit fuzzy,
Speaker 2: but it was just really atmospheric. The food was good.
Speaker 2: It wasn't exceptional, to be honest, but it was what
Speaker 2: kind of clicked for us. So we had the space.
Speaker 2: We had no idea what we wanted to use for
Speaker 2: the space for the Gidli specifically, so we'd gone over
Speaker 2: there fishing. We knew it wanted to be steak orientated
Speaker 2: because of the success of Bistecca, but this venue really
Speaker 2: kind of made it click to us that what we
Speaker 2: got right at Bistecca wasn't that it was steak, it
Speaker 2: was that it was geared around around pushing an experience
Speaker 2: that we loved onto our guests and create an environment
Speaker 2: that they could thrive in. That So this was a
Speaker 2: similar experience that we really, I guess gravitated too, and
Speaker 2: we knew that that's how we wanted to set up.
Speaker 2: The venue in Sydney was like that.
Speaker 3: And it's imperative that all five senses are being hit
Speaker 3: right Obviously, you know when you walk at a venue,
Speaker 3: you want it to be aesthetically pleasing. She knew that
Speaker 3: that site to be to be awow and it needs
Speaker 3: to marry up with the way the tables feel, the
Speaker 3: way the cutter it feels, the way the napkins feel, obviously,
Speaker 3: the taste the food, the smell of the venue. It's
Speaker 3: imperative that you know, you've even gone to a restaurant
Speaker 3: and someone's like, how was that? You're like it it
Speaker 3: was okay, And you said, well, why it was just okay?
Speaker 3: This I don't know, just it was just okay. It
Speaker 3: just didn't it didn't wow me. Is that as a guest,
Speaker 3: you go there and you're sub conscious is picking up
Speaker 3: all these little inconsistencies with what the product is and
Speaker 3: you just don't know what you can't put your finger
Speaker 3: on it. But it's not it's not quite right, and
Speaker 3: you know, it's impaired that all our five senses are
Speaker 3: being hit. And that's a really important of all that
Speaker 3: businesses is that they're you know, they they engage you in,
Speaker 3: all of you in the space. It's not just about
Speaker 3: the food. There's better restaurants doing better food out there
Speaker 3: a hundred percent. But you know, when we went to
Speaker 3: Four Charles, the food was going to be good no
Speaker 3: matter how bad it was. Yeah, because I was in,
Speaker 3: I was sold. I feel good right that moment. If
Speaker 3: I just feel good, if they give you an average
Speaker 3: product is still going to taste pretty good.
Speaker 1: It was. And by the way, most the quality of
Speaker 1: most food, at least you're in Australia at least, like
Speaker 1: raw materials, it's pretty bloody good. It's hard to stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, like if it was just makeing a steak.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm not putting anyone down, but like
Speaker 1: you know, if it's a high quality bit of meat
Speaker 1: to start with, and you're a reasonable chef, you.
Speaker 2: Should fuck yeah, you're already one.
Speaker 1: You're sweet. Like I can even cook a good steak.
Speaker 2: You know, what's your go to steak well.
Speaker 1: I like t bone. I've always loved too because it
Speaker 1: reminds me of a gurr up as a kid. That
Speaker 1: was our real special night t bone at night, which
Speaker 1: wasn't that all that often, but when we got one
Speaker 1: is great because you get in the you get the
Speaker 1: filler in the bit of each and my I remember
Speaker 1: it's funny. My dad used always makee me eat the
Speaker 1: fatterer on and I used to die and and stuff
Speaker 1: to eat the faederal. But today I love the fat
Speaker 1: saying I hate the fat, there's actually correct his flavor
Speaker 1: and I like that bit of fat. Now that's my
Speaker 1: go to or or or a surloin. Probably not big
Speaker 1: on the luna meats like the filets and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but I actually would eat the burger at
Speaker 1: the Italy. I definitely would try the burger for the
Speaker 1: experience because I want to. I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: buy burgers normally because you know, I'm just sort of
Speaker 1: health conscious and all that sort of stuff, And but
Speaker 1: I would make an exception to try that out because
Speaker 1: of the experience or the way you just described it
Speaker 1: to me. If you ordered the egg, I definitely ordered
Speaker 1: the egg. Yeah, I mean because I now I want
Speaker 1: to see it being done. So Nat, You've got me in.
Speaker 1: So it's not because I wanted a hamburger or a
Speaker 1: burger beat burger. It's because I want to see all
Speaker 1: this stuff going on. So you're the makes sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: you two guys are the best ads here. Your own joints. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just your own descriptions is very good, you know. And
Speaker 1: what are the values? You talk about values before, So
Speaker 1: I think it was what are the values of your
Speaker 1: institution's relative to your staff, your customers, everything.
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, back to people, the business
Speaker 3: is not successful forwards to me and James. The business
Speaker 3: is successful because of the people that were with us.
Speaker 3: We're only two people, you know, Grandma's what's successful because
Speaker 3: of us? Yeah, sure, But the rest of it, as
Speaker 3: a business is growing, is the people around us. And
Speaker 3: over the years of working together, we've established core values.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are they?
Speaker 3: So we've got six core values and we basically hire
Speaker 3: against these core values. We manage staff against these core values,
Speaker 3: and we fire against these core values.
Speaker 1: So you let the people who work for you know
Speaker 1: the core values and also where they sit. So there's
Speaker 1: a traffic light system.
Speaker 3: So Mark will have all these six core values, and
Speaker 3: you have a color system next to each of those
Speaker 3: core values. Green bee you achieve those core value, that
Speaker 3: core value at all times or most of the time,
Speaker 3: yellow orange will be we need some work one of
Speaker 3: those core values is not you sort of dropping the
Speaker 3: border and read as you don't. You don't possess that
Speaker 3: core value and it's it's time to move on.
Speaker 1: So is this has dashboard kept their own dashboard or.
Speaker 3: Each each staff and has their own profile, and on
Speaker 3: that profile is they can go and look at it
Speaker 3: that they can access where they are. But as we
Speaker 3: have one on ones every quart every three months where
Speaker 3: the start quarterly quarterly reviews, yep, and that's their manager.
Speaker 3: All their direct manager will sit go and go through
Speaker 3: their core values, how they're how they're tracking. Any conversations
Speaker 3: need to be had, but if they're read, it's it's
Speaker 3: spoken about more than just a quarterly. It's spoken about
Speaker 3: straight away.
Speaker 1: So for example, what could.
Speaker 3: Drive driven and I mean driven is not driven to
Speaker 3: succeeds in hospitality or in our company, Like a lot
Speaker 3: of our staff are doing it because they're an actor
Speaker 3: or they want to be on TV. So they kind of.
Speaker 3: I don't expect them to commit themselves driven to to
Speaker 3: make liquid later successful, but driven in their own right.
Speaker 3: People who want to want to get up in the morning,
Speaker 3: they want to get stuck in their they want to
Speaker 3: have a go. The second is respect, so obviously respect
Speaker 3: for each other, respect for themselves, and respect for the
Speaker 3: business they work in. A big one for me is
Speaker 3: growth mindset. So what I mean by that is we
Speaker 3: all have mistakes, we will fuck up. It's about how
Speaker 3: do you take the strengths and the polity away from
Speaker 3: those mistakes and use that as a power tool to
Speaker 3: grow rather than let it squash you and push you
Speaker 3: into the ground. So that's a big one for me.
Speaker 3: It's growth mindset. Teamwork is another one, so making sure
Speaker 3: we work as a team. We come from a sporting background.
Speaker 1: You do as well.
Speaker 3: How important we bring us all of our sporting analogies
Speaker 3: back into business. I think they're very similar. Sport business
Speaker 3: very similar. And to play as a team, you have
Speaker 3: your mates back to work next the person est to
Speaker 3: to put yourself out to make sure the person xt
Speaker 3: youse is happy and successful. And one of the most
Speaker 3: important ones for us is the desire to create an experience.
Speaker 3: And I think I brought this up before.
Speaker 1: That's five.
Speaker 3: Yes, the desire to create an experience. So this is
Speaker 3: something you can't be taught. This is something that it has.
Speaker 3: It's within you and you get You get off by
Speaker 3: serving people, You get off by making other people happy.
Speaker 2: Downs have it as a culture.
Speaker 3: We talked about it without that you're not going to
Speaker 3: make this industry because it's just not gonna happen. And
Speaker 3: that's that's the most and the key one I'm looking
Speaker 3: for when it comes to to.
Speaker 2: Our core values, and that was fire accountability, accountability which
Speaker 2: we hold ourselves to. If we say it, we'll do it.
Speaker 2: We've always sort of between the two of us said
Speaker 2: we've got a man triff. It was it complains to
Speaker 2: me about something, and I say, okay, he knows that
Speaker 2: means I will resolve it. And if I can't resolve it,
Speaker 2: I will come back to you. It doesn't mean I'm
Speaker 2: just going to ignore you. I don't think it's relevant.
Speaker 3: But also we will suck up and own it like
Speaker 3: a maot of mistake, Like let's move on a man
Speaker 3: of mistake we've had.
Speaker 1: We fix this problem.
Speaker 3: Rather than trying to push the blame rather than trying
Speaker 3: to sort of pass the buck to somebody else or
Speaker 3: defend your position correct, just own it, we resolve it.
Speaker 1: We're not using a shit about how you can defend
Speaker 1: your position because we're in business and we're looking for
Speaker 1: our politics. Well, it's going to be business about outcomes.
Speaker 1: It's not about your own personal how you feel like.
Speaker 1: You know, if you've done something wrong that's not within
Speaker 1: the organization, not within the mantra, then it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you if it's defensible.
Speaker 3: And the most powerful thing about these core values is
Speaker 3: we're out of stage now as a company, got close
Speaker 3: to three hundred staff that because we live and breathe,
Speaker 3: we talk about these values, we and we manage against
Speaker 3: these values. The people who work in our environment hold
Speaker 3: these values. So when somebody comes into the environment that
Speaker 3: doesn't hold those values, gives what they do. They are
Speaker 3: feel comfortable, so they leave, yeah, and that they self
Speaker 3: select correct. And that is a lot of it's been
Speaker 3: a lot of hard work to get to that stage,
Speaker 3: and it's a lot of constantly being consistent about what
Speaker 3: we talk about. But now at the stages, they don't
Speaker 3: want to be part of this because that doesn't align
Speaker 3: with them.
Speaker 1: So what's the final one, what's your new venture?
Speaker 2: Look at one more after the Gidla. So just before
Speaker 2: the Gidler we sold Burgoo and Wilhelminas. That's gone now
Speaker 2: and last year we opened our Offies, which is our
Speaker 2: third and hopefully last kind of stake concept. But it's
Speaker 2: some Bli Street in that kind of area where there's
Speaker 2: lots of other state restaurants in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Oh. Yeah, it's around the corner for me. Yep, it's
Speaker 1: just down from one of my officers there. I've got
Speaker 1: one on Blin Street and office. It'll be a great officer. Ye,
Speaker 1: just down the roads the back underneath the Yeah, is
Speaker 1: that next to the gym?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't been there. I walked past of you
Speaker 1: because I was sure it was a breakfast place or
Speaker 1: a dinner play lunch and dinner.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, you mentioned Surloin. You like it, So it's
Speaker 2: only serving surloin.
Speaker 1: It's kind of at a ball called sirloin, our ball sirloin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the joke where the name comes from.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So we we looked at what we're offering across the
Speaker 2: other venues and from an economy of scale point of view,
Speaker 2: we thought it makes sense for us to buy the
Speaker 2: whole joint of the Beast and then agent ourselves for
Speaker 2: six weeks so that we can ensure that we've got
Speaker 2: the right quality and the right consistent supply. We had
Speaker 2: a lot of issues with the consistent supply of the
Speaker 2: product because we're going through a Pasteco alone almost six
Speaker 2: hundred kilos of t bone a week, so it's quite substantial. Substantial,
Speaker 2: so we looked for a space that we could incorporate
Speaker 2: our own on side butchery that we could then get
Speaker 2: bulk orders from our butcher agent, like was said, for
Speaker 2: six weeks and then distribute off to Bisteco and the Gidley.
Speaker 2: But in order to do that, we needed to have
Speaker 2: a third restaurant that used the final part of the joint,
Speaker 2: which was the Serbine. So that's where Alfhis came into it.
Speaker 2: But rather than just do another state restaurant that has
Speaker 2: been done several times and now, the Gidli was probably
Speaker 2: one of the earlier American style ones in Sydney. There's
Speaker 2: now quite a lot of them. We were sort of
Speaker 2: on that wave of steak brasseries in Sydney, so Alfie's
Speaker 2: is really pitched at the next generation of people working
Speaker 2: in the city. It's fast paced, it's loud, it's aimed
Speaker 2: at a sort of lower price point. So rather than
Speaker 2: come in and spend a healthy sum and stay for
Speaker 2: two and a half three hours and not go back
Speaker 2: to work, come into Alfie's. Stay will be on your
Speaker 2: plate in fifteen minutes. You can be come for a
Speaker 2: lunch break for forty five minutes to an hour and
Speaker 2: go back to the office. You have an affordable but
Speaker 2: great quality meal, you have a glass of wine, and
Speaker 2: you're back to the office. So that's where Alfie's are.
Speaker 1: Trying that because that's my go in and out.
Speaker 3: And we have nine tons of beef in the core.
Speaker 3: Back nine tons, I'll take you. We never run out
Speaker 3: of beef, hopefully not.
Speaker 2: So did you have anything else on the on the
Speaker 2: on the we have something opening in January next year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So we have tried to do something different this time,
Speaker 2: and we've partnered with Toga Properties and TF Hotels who
Speaker 2: have a new development out on the corner of Baptists
Speaker 2: and Cleveland Street.
Speaker 1: Old Murder.
Speaker 2: We're not allowed to say that was on the corner
Speaker 2: where Bats Street Crown and Cleveland, Crown and Cleveland and
Speaker 2: then if you go dagoning across is Baptist Street. So
Speaker 2: there's a large development that's been going on.
Speaker 1: For it's on the edge of Surrey Hills. Is probably
Speaker 1: more address. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the one. It's
Speaker 1: Spencer Simmons' development is that.
Speaker 2: Yes, So it's a mixed development. There's some retail, there's
Speaker 2: some residential ago and there's a hotel. And the hotel
Speaker 2: is going in is called the Eve. So it's run
Speaker 2: by TF as a hotel operator. It's they're the same
Speaker 2: people that own, sorry, that run the Carlisle and Brisbane,
Speaker 2: so this is their equivalent in Sydney, and they acknowledged
Speaker 2: as a lot of hotel operators have done in Sydney retail.
Speaker 1: As I call it the color Little probably right because
Speaker 1: that's the name of the old man Calil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of hotel operators have acknowledged that they
Speaker 2: don't do F and B very well. They're about rooms
Speaker 2: and keys and service and functions and all the other
Speaker 2: things that goes with a hotel. So they've started to
Speaker 2: farm out that to specialist operators. So when Tiger started looking,
Speaker 2: they wanted someone that was quintessentially Sydney, that was born
Speaker 2: and raised here, that had an established success rate in
Speaker 2: Sydney specifically. We went through quite a lengthy tender process
Speaker 2: which we won earlier this year, and so we're doing
Speaker 2: two venues as part of the hotel. There's also other
Speaker 2: restaurants going into this precinct, but we've got a European
Speaker 2: style bistro going into the lobby. So if you think
Speaker 2: about all the hotels you've stayed at in Europe or America,
Speaker 2: that quintessential lobby space that's got that buzz and that
Speaker 2: energy about it. There's always people moving around. Maybe they're
Speaker 2: working on their laptop, maybe a couple of people are
Speaker 2: smashing Martiniz in the corner. You grab a quick bite
Speaker 2: to eat, or a play oys some champagne. It's kind
Speaker 2: of that mixed use space. So we've got that going in.
Speaker 2: And then on the rooftop they've got a beautiful rooftop
Speaker 2: restaurant which is attached to the hotel's pool that we'll
Speaker 2: be doing in a contemporary Mexican around the rooftop so
Speaker 2: an all weather space, so in summer it can be
Speaker 2: open and breezy, in winter it can be closed off
Speaker 2: and nice and warm and sheltered. It's kind of pushing
Speaker 2: the boat out a little bit. I think Sydney does
Speaker 2: text mes. Yeah, and that kind of elevated style of
Speaker 2: Mexican cuisine is starting to come in. What really drew
Speaker 2: us to it and we jumped on a plane and
Speaker 2: went to La and looked at all the offerings that
Speaker 2: they do there. They do rooftops pretty well.
Speaker 1: They sure do.
Speaker 3: Was the Peninsula, Yeah, great Mexican food, unbele Mexican.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All the ones we looked at they had a great
Speaker 2: piece of protein, They had some sort of garnish salad
Speaker 2: and a couple of sources, and it was fresh and iburn, exciting,
Speaker 2: and we're like, this is what we like to eat,
Speaker 2: this is what we do well. We do that protein
Speaker 2: and garnish, keeping it simple rather than pearls and swirls.
Speaker 2: That's our specialty. So let's do contemporary Mexican. And when
Speaker 2: you're sitting around a pool having a you know, a
Speaker 2: taco and a margarita sounds pretty good to me.
Speaker 3: Have you got names for these joints Lotti's on the rooftop, Well,
Speaker 3: it's called lotty Lotty Yeah, And Bardulous.
Speaker 2: Hello, double T l O double T I E which
Speaker 2: is not yet announced, just announced, so we're just breaking. Yeah,
Speaker 2: called bar Julius, bar Julius, bar Julius.
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought it was one with the bar Julius.
Speaker 1: That's cool. I like, that's a good name. Bar Julius.
Speaker 2: The precinct is named after the Wonderlitch brothers who used
Speaker 2: to own that block of land one hundred odd years ago,
Speaker 2: who were a couple of migrant merchant traders, and one
Speaker 2: of those brothers was Ernest Julius Wondering.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So we weren't overly creative there.
Speaker 1: But it's a good name, bar Julius.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 2: No, it sticks the location.
Speaker 1: I'm better. I've not known the story behind it, but
Speaker 1: I think bar Julius is because that takes away from
Speaker 1: bar Julius. I think so.
Speaker 3: Most of our stories are just made up anyway for
Speaker 3: how he came up with the name, well, we do,
Speaker 3: but more.
Speaker 1: Names have a story behind it because we just make
Speaker 1: shu up. It's actually good names. It's memorable from my
Speaker 1: point of view, and lord, it's very good. Well, all guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for ertaining me, me and the audience for your
Speaker 1: journey bar Julius sounds really cool, Lotties does. I'm definitely
Speaker 1: going to go back to Bistecca because now I'm going
Speaker 1: to probably appreciate a little bit better because I worked it.
Speaker 1: Walked in there with a nark's head on that day.
Speaker 1: I remember it. I wasn't I didn't really want to go.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like going. But I only reason it's
Speaker 1: because Jeff asking me is in my mate. It's not
Speaker 1: just not my thing normal. I don't want to drink
Speaker 1: wine during the day because I've got to go back
Speaker 1: to work basically, but I do remember her phone think
Speaker 1: and and and I'm definitely going to try the Giddy
Speaker 1: by the way, the Gidli why do you call it
Speaker 1: gid because it wasn't named after Matthew Gidley who played
Speaker 1: for Newcastle. Now it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Again, It's one of these names that it sounds good
Speaker 2: but it doesn't really matter. But King Street, which we're
Speaker 2: located on, is named after Philip Gidley King, the third
Speaker 2: Governor of New South Wales.
Speaker 1: Right, who was a Teeto Loling as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which doesn't really but it does play into the
Speaker 2: where the extension of our team, which is our design team.
Speaker 2: We've used the same people to do the branding, the building,
Speaker 2: the design work several times where they get their inspiration from.
Speaker 2: So a lot of the fit out of the Gidley
Speaker 2: is taken from Philip Gidley. King had a property on
Speaker 2: Norfolk Island and he was into his floora and fauna.
Speaker 2: So a lot of the wallpaper is displaying native plants
Speaker 2: of Australia, so it kind of all ties in in
Speaker 2: a subtle way.
Speaker 1: Well, I will I will bring my own bottle of
Speaker 1: whiskey along to wherever I go, whichever was the first place. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think we've booked the Gidley I'm taking. We're going
Speaker 1: to be Chrisippoti there.
Speaker 2: I think this year so great.
Speaker 1: I will bring a bottle of my whiskey along too,
Speaker 1: and that'll be my gift to your establishment. And by
Speaker 1: the way, it did win again this year Austraight's best single. Note.
Speaker 1: I just thought, throw a little bit, a little bit
Speaker 1: of a thing because it is Christmas time coming up,
Speaker 1: and please buy and go to these guys restaurants. Guys,
Speaker 1: thanks very much, Jimmy, Thanks thank you, great Combot, really
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Thank you