SPEAKER_00 0:00

Sammy, what's been your biggest financial f up if I'm honest? It's about like contracts. And did you find that starting a business and saying yes to a lot of things allowed you to grow, or did it actually make it inefficient and pull you back?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

When you're trying to build a business, there's that period at the start where you say yes to everything. That's the best way to like push yourself to the next stage.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

You've been working in some of the best venues in Australia. What do you think has allowed you to continually grow in this space and keep that great name? In this episode, I sit down with Sam Frodarcho, better known as the Brick Chef. From wood-fired ovens to coal-driven hearsts, Sam's designs are really redefining live fire cooking. A dive into how he broke into the industry, the highs and the lows of building a career from the outside of the kitchen. This is a true story of someone whose work fuels the passion behind the plates. So, Sam, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me, Paul. Thought of doing a nice intro.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

That was a really good segue. Just like start with talking about how how hard it is, how much demand there is. You're like, it's really nice outside. You know, it is. It's a Saturday. It's good. We've all had our coffees.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yes, it's beautiful. Sam, I've appreciated your work for many, many years. I geek out over your work. I look at it, I'll be scrolling, or deep scrolling, and then you know, I'll just be like, fuck, Sam's work is a shit. And then I've always had this dream to build something at home, and I just don't have the home for it yet, but one day I will. And uh funny story, this or this will make you laugh, but my grandfather, he always comes up with ideas, and one idea was he wants a pizza oven. The guy's never cooked a pizza in his life, for God's sake, he's an Arab. He's got no idea about pizza or bread. And he goes to me, Hey Paul, I want to buy a pizza oven. I'm like, okay, find the pizza oven and we'll buy it. And then he goes, No, I want you to look for it. I said, like, pop, it's like gonna cost like at least a couple grand to get this thing up and running. Like, I'll chip him 50%, like, but it's a couple grand, bro. He goes, a couple thousand? No way, you know, blah blah blah. Then he goes to me, he goes, I found one. I said, okay. I said, you find it, and you let me know what it costs, and I'll chip him 50%. Then he starts looking and then he forgets about it for like six months. You know, just like forgets the idea. So then I don't attain it. I don't like if he doesn't push it anymore, that means he's over it. We have the same family. All of a sudden, an idea comes back, and I and he forgot I told him that ovens cost a couple grand to build. And then he goes to me, hey, I want I want an oven. And I'm like, listen man, I don't have time for it. You find it and I'll chip in. Right? I'll chip in. So he goes, and then he forgets. Forgets about that that I told him I'd chip in. Then he buys, buys his neighbor's oven next door for 250 bucks. Because they were moving out of a rental. And he goes, You wouldn't believe. You would not believe. I said what? He goes, I bought a pizza oven. I said, Yeah? I said how much? He goes, You wouldn't believe 250 bucks. I said, Oh my god, that's amazing. I said, Here's 125. And then he stopped. And he goes, fuck. I said, what? Because I should have told you 500. Classic. We also have the same family in that regard. He goes, I should have told you 500. I was like, fucking hell. I said, this bloke wanted to jip me. Like, you know, he was so disappointed himself for the whole day. Then he missed out on a deal on his own grandson. Damn. I guess that's where I get the hustle mentality from. It's just like, you know. Um, so Sammy, I guess I'd love to just I've I've what what I'm trying to get at is I'd love seeing you work, and you know, I'd love to just unpack today how you got into the industry, what led you to brick some fire, and you know, you're so well respected along like amongst a lot of people. Every time I've you know ever heard your name in passing or seen one of your products, it's really amazing to leave a footprint in a lot of venues, and that they know that they can call you at any time. So when I see a respected individual like that, for me, that's like, mate, I want to learn, I want to learn how you maintain that, you know. I was in the supply side for many years, and that's always been a challenge, especially when I don't manufacture the equipment. I rely on manufacturers, right? So you manufacture it, but then you also uphold that service. So I guess we can just unpack that today.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Firstly, thank you. That's very lovely. And um yeah, I guess the the supply side and the design side kind of came from seeing it like firsthand. So I've worked for a few companies, worked for myself in construction. I'm a stonemason by trade, um, and I taught myself how to weld because of the necessity of working in hospital. It's like you gotta know stainless, you gotta know, you know, how to what its limitations are, and you know, um, but yeah, so I was working as a stonemason. Got picked up by a company that that designed wood-fired ovens, um, worked for them for a few years, and while that was going on, I ran their construction arm. So I had a team and um during that time developed a few products for commercial use. At the time it was very like commercial grade, um, but we weren't really in the restaurant space. And um, it was all based in Melbourne, yeah, at the time. Um, and um, yeah, at the time, friends were opening up a restaurant where I grew up in Beaconsfield, um, and they were looking for weight stuff, and I was a bit of a sucker for punishment, it was like managing a construction arm of a company, and I was like, you know what, it they'd be good people to learn under. I'll learn a lot about that world, and you know, and I'd worked in coffee and you know that kind of thing before. I'd done catering with a you know a wood fired oven trailer prior to that, but I'd never worked in fine dining. So um the guys at Own Mine Um in Beaconsfield, they just won uh last as of this year, best restaurant in Vic. Okay. Um, and um terrible front of house waiter, just for the record. Like had nothing to do with me back then. They were great back then, they're amazing now. Um, but yeah, working in that environment, um particularly under Blaine and Chase, seeing like how efficient and how um how considered every movement is and and how you look after equipment, or how most most chefs should look after equipment. Um, and and I guess being in that space for the time that I was there, it kind of triggered something in my head where I was like, this is an area where people aren't uh innovating or pushing um the you know in the wood fired space specifically, because that was kind of my my specialty. So niche seeing um the connection between people wanting to install these, you know, beautiful, you know, constructions of you know, fire bricks and yeah, big hearts, and you know, they want the theater, but then realizing so much of it is tied up in tradition and history and family and and community. Um, but it you can't just pick up a provincial oven that's you know out in Tuscany and just plonk it in the middle of a restaurant and expect it to work the same way. Um, so like very steep learning curve after that. The company that I worked for, they closed down the construction arm. Um, and that was kind of like the perfect opportunity for me because I'd finished up at OMI and um how long were you there? Uh I think it was like it was only it was under a year. Okay, and I was and I wasn't like working full time, um, but it was enough to go hang out, help out a couple shifts and learn. It was like working those like 10, 11 days, 10, 11 hour days in construction and then going home and having a shower and going to like have an early staff meal and then running on the it was good, it was really good, and again, not my my forte.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Man, I used to do that. Like I would I would literally finish up from the office at five, get changed, um, wouldn't even make it home, uh, go straight to the venue, like have a shower. He used to have a shower at the back. I was lucky. Well the venue that um my family had was they used to rent the apartment upstairs as well, and the pizza chef used to live up there. So when we sponsored the chef, it was like, you live up here, you work down here, that like he loved it. It was like he's fuck like that's all I need, you know? Yeah. And he had his wood fire oven, and I would like I would be the only person that was allowed to use his shower. Like every old man was no, like, no, but like I was mates with him, so he'd let me use the shower. So I'd shower, I'd go downstairs, and then we'd be up there for like I'd be up from eight till five in the office, leg it over, be there in half an hour, shower, then go work the shift from six till like two, reset for Sunday, because we had a function, go home and sleep, be at the restaurant by eight for Sunday service, and then you're there like for the for the lunch, the communions, whatever they had, and then you're there all day till till night, and it was just like, but then you feel like this numbness. I don't know if anyone in the hospital like feels this, but there's that point when you lay down in bed and you're just numb, or you wake up and you're like, What the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, yeah. You almost like what I think for me is like when people ask me about that experience, is like I put a lot of it down to the like it triggering something, but at the time it was such a blur, I couldn't tell you, you know, if it was like you know, like just adrenaline. It was like, yeah, it was it was literally that whole time was just like running on adrenaline. And it did give me like an ability to like speak the language of kitchens, see how everything moved, and see where the blind spots were in terms of literally everyone else. Um, and as I said, because so much of it's tied in tradition and the all these old crafts, um, when you question a design or like a specific element of something that is that is tied to tradition, people tend to get up in arms. And you're like, my my family are all Italian, and the day that I was like, I don't really like building domes anymore. You know, they're not space efficient, they're not, you know, it was like my my my dad was like, it's not the same. I'm like, no, no, it is. Here's this study on like how heat transfers through bricks with this this particular type of insulation. I was like, and here's another study on this. And I was like, and let's just draw a circle and put it in a kitchen, draw a square that takes up the same amount of space, like, and tell me that that is you know uh not a compromise that you would make if it meant that you could turn over another pizza every minute, or it meant that you could fit gastros in it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

So this is this is interesting. So Sam, your your specialty is you went from stonemasonry, stonemasonry to now you craft live fuel stations. You make beautiful pieces of art as I like to call it, that's that allow people to cook. Oh, true, very durable, very durable piece of art. I think they could be displayed that allow you to use timber, wood, coal, anything that's live fuel, even gas, do you do stuff with gas?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Try not to. Okay, I've done it once, and because with gas, if it's custom, you need a type B plumber, and there's like five of them in Australia. So if you don't buy an off-the-shelf up and that's fit fitted with gas, it's just not worth it. And for me, like mixing fuels is just it's too dangerous, you know. Even where it's legal, it's just not smart, in my opinion. I'm gonna say, in my opinion, so many times you could just cut it all. No, no, no, it's your opinion. That's fine, that's what we're here for. Yeah, it big asterisk at the start of every like for me, putting gas on ovens means you can't use a door, like legally, you can't put a door on it. Um, because if that that gas burner leaks, then you've you essentially open that door, and if there's an ignition source, yeah, or that door it becomes like a pr projectile in that kitchen, and there's some crazy content on the internet of that kind of stuff happening. So for me, because it's not an energy efficient, you know, um option in terms of heat retention, um, because very easy for us to go down a tangent here, but the the easiest way to describe kind of the angle that I've moved in for wood-fired cooking is like being able to harness energy and being able to utilize space. They're the two principles where, you know, second to durability, which is like the most important one really, and um, and easy maintenance and all that stuff. But if you can't utilize that space efficiently and you can't use every bit of heat or smoke or, you know, whatever you want to get out of that unit, yep. Because at the end of the day, if we're talking about, and you talk about very often like costing, you know, if you take that steak and you go, right, how much charcoal did we just use to cook that steak? And you're like, could have we cooked other things above it or adjacent to it, or you know, uh in that same time frame, you know, and how do you design that solution so that the chef just intuitively leans towards that style of cooking? And it sounds like really nerdy and kind of like petty to be like, you have to you have to make it like an easy option, but it's true, it's just with any product design, if it's not easy, you know, we could all pull out our phones and and talk about how the interface has changed in the past 10, 15 years. It's the same deal with cooking equipment. And anything would fired is a hundred years, two hundred years behind anything that's that's commercial because we're taking something that's you know a provincial communal element and dropping it in a space where everything is a cube, everything is square and straight and you know set at fits in the line, yeah, it's ergonomic. So, yeah, without like really spiraling out of control. No, don't worry. No, it's so yeah, so like it the that whole area um of of design is is what's really given me like the the passion to kind of keep pushing. Um and yeah, for for restaurants to adjust the way that they cook um and kind of see it almost as a trend. And I built a lot of kitchens. Like, how many kitchens have you built, you reckon? I was I was sitting down doing like a list, and there's at least like at least 60 restaurants that have like like decent work, like sized work, and then probably another 20 or 30 that have just like you know small grills and whatever else. So there's there's a lot. So you've got about a hundred venues. I would probably say so now, yeah. And how many years have you been doing it? For myself, I think this is my sixth year. Wow, five or six. I don't actually remember. That's okay. COVID was a very dark time. Hey man, you just said we weren't gonna talk about it. I just said it's the pandemic was a dark time and we lost two years. But I will say on that, if you get locked in your house or your state, um, it makes you it makes you think completely differently about how to survive or how to, you know, um just brings that human instinct back. Yeah, it does. Like it's what our forefathers, the cavemen, what they used to do. Don't want to make it give us like too much credit being like that primal, but there is an element of it where Victorians were primal, bro.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah, you guys were the primal beings of the world. Yeah, guys, anyone that knows this, and yes, I promised I would not bring politics, but we need a special shout out to the people of Victoria that suffered the most during the pandemic. The longest lockdowns in history, like the the modern world knows.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, well, I think there was like two other examples, but they were in countries that don't typically report their deaths or anything like that. So that's fine. Uh but but from a resilience perspective, that period of time, um, you know, I was living in Brunswick East, you know, we saw the full shutdown, you know, like you could walk down the 96 tram line, you know, until eight o'clock where you had to go home. But like for me, because I couldn't leave the state, and at the time a lot of my work was, well, you know, as you would understand, when you're trying to build a business, there's that period at the start where you say yes to everything. And if it's stretching your abilities as a craftsperson or, you know, like as a chef or a waiter or whatever, you will give yourself that room to stretch because you know that if you're used to it, that's the best way to like push yourself to the next stage.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

And did you find that you know starting a business and saying yes to a lot of things allowed you to grow, or did it actually make it inefficient and pull you back?

SPEAKER_01 18:35

It did in that case, it definitely made me grow. Um, we lived at a property um that had like it used to be a clinic, and it had like a you know, like a chiropractic clinic or whatever. So it had a big backyard. Um, and I got permission to put like a shipping container in the backyard so I could do like little projects in there. And when we went into lockdown, that was essentially the only space that I could work. Um, and any job that I was approached for, um, especially if it was um interstate, had to be designed to fit on a pallet, it had to be designed to be either modular and lightweight enough that anyone could build it. Um, and it had to be, it had to be able to be like, in a sense, repaired remotely. And if there were spare parts, like I had to think three steps ahead, like if I get stuck with something that like a weld cracks, which is the you know, uh impact, heat, all of the things that that happen in a kitchen that happen in a kitchen, um, they happen worse on wood-fired cooking equipment because you're throwing logs, you're slapping pans down, and everything is hot, but you have to have elements of like masonry which is brittle. And you know, there's all of these elements that when you're designing it, you're like, where is the weak point here? And then if you make it too heavy, then people are like, My hand's sore, or like, you know, you're like, it's too noisy, or it does this. And you know, early days, everyone wanted the pariahs, you know, like everyone wanted, and I personally I will happily not even in my opinion, I think they suck. I think the idea of having a grill surface that raises and lowers is purely theatre, and eventually we'll realize that like that surface that you're cooking on doesn't need to go up and down for you to efficiently cook a steak. And there are venues, and obviously, like I'm associated with venues where the product is so, you know, um, so much time and preparation is going into that, that yeah, like you can give it that amount of attention because the customer is is paying for it for that experience. So I understand like an Argentinian restaurant or a purely steak restaurant, they need that. But when you see how much more surface area a grill has, if you just lose the mechanicals and you zone that space, and then you know, when you get used to it, you know where the temperatures are, you and then you think about it the same way you would on a on a target top or or in a you know something where there's a gradient of heat. You go by time, and then you can dial in things where you know we've got restaurants that have a tiny footprint grill, and they're pumping out five, six, seven times what they would if it was just a single layer grill over charcoal or a little hibachi.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

So that's and and it's just amazing to see that you product design, you engineer, and then you build it all yourself. Yeah. It's not you say yes regularly. You're like, yeah. It's like such a deflated yeah. Well, you know, like yeah, no, bro, like, yeah, fuck yeah, yeah, I do that, you know. And you own it and it's yeah. I'm sorry, it's it I'm tired. I'm not sure. No, no, no, I'm not I'm here, I'm in city. I'm with you. I'm still doing it. It's just like you know, for you to do that, and have you found that at the point in your time in your business, is there room for you to scale?

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah, well, there is, but I think I've made the decision that you know when you take on a job that is like purely custom, which the majority of my work is, you can't really scale and maintain the the customer relationship. You can't maintain the level of quality or the ability to like see the blind spots in a sense, um, unless you're right there. And for me, like I I only hire labor when it's like a job is too big for one person to physically do. Um, and down the track, like there's opportunity to hire, but I'm not really I I love being there, you know, like I love being on site, I love I love like working with my hands and I love being from an end-to-end perspective involved in every aspect of a job. Um, so yeah, there's the short answer is like I don't really want to because the part of the market that I'm in is kind of niche and I'm pushing myself probably harder than most of the other guys who still have a you know a piece of the pie as it was, and I'm not really interested in competing with the the high volume guys or you know the small format guys or whatever else. Like they can, we can all exist, you know, and there's there's more than enough work to go around. Um but yeah, for me, like I love that I'll get an Instagram message from a chef, and then you know, six months later, eight months later, we'll be in a finished restaurant, and that's gone through architects, mechanical engineers, the owner of the restaurant, you know, three or four design revisions, you know, and then hopefully at some point some kind of like payment, and then after that, after that, you know, you're on site and you know the job might change. And if I had people working for me and I was running like different sites with different people working, and often it does like overlap, as you would know, like a uh a restaurant build very rarely, you know, starts on the projected start date and ends on the projected end date.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Now you can plan as much as you want. But we use we I use a term called budgeting a lot. I've seen that you know on the hospital dojo. Budgeting is a great word because it's the anticipated figure and the anticipated time, but you need to leave marginal room for error. Why? Because you're unfortunately we are not in control of the entire environment. There are so many moving pieces when it comes to putting a restaurant together, and it's probably one of the most difficult businesses to construct and to deliver. It's not like an office fit out. You know, you have so many different levels, it is like the most technical build besides a science lab. We're probably on the same par. I would I would agree with you there. I haven't thought about it that way, but absolutely. We we are on the same par. We've got high-powered equipment that takes consumes a lot of energy everywhere. We have live working environments. If anything, it's probably one of the dangerous, most dangerous confined environments, to be honest. Like if you think about it, because you know, people are moving at a ridiculous speed to push food out with sharp objects and unbearable heat. And sometimes unbearable personality. Um exactly. So, like, it's a stressful fucking place. Yeah, and it's it's because that's the demand of the kitchen, and it's it's not, it's it's stressful because there's all these elements of environment around you that that that push that. So, my job, I guess, is when we're talking about budgeting and time is setting realistic goals. Okay, guys, what's the goal here at the end? We want a successful venue. We want to build it, we want to do this, we want to do that. I'll give you an example. Right now, I'm working with a team in the Gold Coast, I've been a retainer with them for three months. The restaurant was due to complete two weeks ago. Right? They got a deal with the landlord, the landlord's building them their place. He's not charging them rent until they finish. Great negotiation. We've got we we've done all the food and beverage consulting for them. We've got them a chef, got them a misologist, got them all the programs. We're flying up there on Tuesday to do the complete um training to their team, supposedly in their space, but their space is not even 20% built. They left the builder, they left the the building component with their landlord because they did they're paying for 80% of it. But we can't stop the projected timeline on getting the menus out, getting this delivered, da da da da da da da da da da da da da because they have an anticipation of an opening date. Yeah. And they're paying for staff. So they've hired people, they've got staff on the books, we need to train them, they've got suppliers lined up, so you know, it's it's a thing of you know, if you have it good on one side, you can't have it good everywhere else. Right? And you can't win everywhere on each front. So I guess without going on a tangent too much, if you're in hospitality and you work in a kitchen and you want to leave the kitchen, you can. But you can still work in hospitality. You don't have to work in a kitchen to work in hospital. We're the guys like you and I that allow them to continue to work in the kitchen. And trust me, there's enough work in our space for you to jump on board and and join in. But you need to be able to deliver.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah, it's like you need to you need to want to work hard. And in my case, if you can't push a wheelbarrow, don't even call me. 100%. Don't know what the prerequisites are.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

For me, uh for me, it's about don't think it's a nine to five. And for me, it's all about you need to be able to converse on many different levels. I can talk to a chef, I can talk to a dishwasher, I can talk to a casual waitress that's never been in the industry, I can also talk to a landlord, the solicitor, and the mechanical engineer. I'm gonna have these conversations all in the space of an hour.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

That sounds exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

It is, but that's my job. Like that's what I'm paid to do is be that sort of glue that brings people together and allows the venue to stand up on its own two feet. And I guess what I really want to unpack from you in this is you've been working in some of the best venues in Australia. And for them to be able to put your piece of equipment in there and rely on it day in and day out, what do you think has allowed you to continually grow in this space and keep that great name? That's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Like a lot of it you kind of summed up is like being able to have the conversations, even when they're hard ones. You know, like I'd I've made heaps of mistakes over the past six months, six years, probably a couple in six months. I've had a baby, so my brain is like my wife had a baby, I was there. Um still had all the cheat meals with her, yeah, yeah, the baby. Yeah, um, I would say that a lot of it has to do with just knowing how to balance expectation and how to communicate, um communicate your outcomes, communicate timelines, you know, and when you miss them, like own up to what you're what you've what your shortcoming is, but also like not really just be walked walked over. And that doesn't happen often. And you would know as well, just in the industry in general, there's like a lot of different power dynamics, there's a lot of stress, there's a lot of pressure, it's a lot of passion. There is, and that's why I would love it. That's the biggest thing. I would say that's why we love it, though. Like 100%. You you know, you described a kitchen environment. I'm like, what's the closest thing to that? It's like a coal mine, you know, like you're like mechanical engineers, we got temperatures, we got you know, lots of you know, breathing issues, or like, you know, people being in confined spaces, but ultimately the thing coming in from the outside or from an adjacent perspective is you have to deliver what you've said you're gonna deliver. If the plan changes, you have to be able to communicate that the outcome may change, you know, and um, and you also have to be be able to pick up the slack, you know, from from different angles. Being on site, being being the business owner and the designer and the consultant and the builder and the person installing, and then you know, in some cases training and maintaining, it means that you can see the problem before it happens. And if that informs design, you've saved yourself a lot of trouble. If it's happening on site with trades, you know, other trades, like who you know might build a wall in the way of you getting your work in, which has happened like way more than I would like to admit. Um, it's just all scheduling, and sometimes it's not anyone's fault. And a project manager's job is a nightmare with restaurant builds, like I've built close to 600 venues.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

But exactly, like I know the the f and my but you look so happy. I'll tell you why I'm happy. And this is honest. I've delivered to like over 600 venues, whether that be equipment, whether it delivered kitchens, whether it be full builds. I've worked with like some of the largest organizations and government institutions. One thing that I did wrong when I was younger was I thought if I seen a problem, I would try to fix it and not tell anybody about the problem. And then it'd be too late. And then I'll just go mute like fuck shit. I hope nobody picks up on this. And rather than facing the problem, I would run away from it and push it to the side and hope it goes away. But that was never ever the right thing to do. We would fix it at the end and I would get it done and be over the line, everyone's happy. You know, maybe you don't, you know, maybe that client will be resent like have some sort of resentment to you or whatever, of course, yes, but it's it's it's a high pressure environment. Um especially in Australia when people are paying large sums of rent and large sums of wages for people and they're waiting for you to deliver, and especially when they look at you and they're like, out of all the pieces of equipment here, Sam, yours costs the most money and you're late. So imagine being the project manager, hey, all my money is going to you and you're late. You're the be-all end-all for this entire thing. It's like, bro, I'm late, but you signed the shit lease. You're the one that said, okay, to a four-week fit out period on your lease, and you didn't sign a heads of agreement that said um not pending DA.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Yeah, that was just like firing off of my head like having like num-like flashbacks is how many times you're like, you've got approval, right? And you're like, we'll get it, and you're like, cool, cool, yeah, exactly. Like it's Stonington Council.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

So so exactly no politics, no government. But it's so true, like you know, if you're gonna engage in somebody to build your restaurant or design it or whatever the case may be, when you sign a lease, that's a ticking time bomb, bro. Like that is you going, sign, timeline, it's like setting a detonator. Yeah, beep, and the second ticks every single day.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Get to work, Jack Bauer.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

So what you should do is prior to you signing that lease, involve the people that you need before. So if you know Sam takes 12 to 14 weeks to build your oven, call Sam 18 weeks before you think about it. Say, Sam, I'm looking, I'm looking at building an oven. Okay, well, Sam will tell you, bro, I need this, this, this, this. And before you sign your lease, make sure you have this approval, that approval thing. Sam will tell you that. If you want to design a kitchen and you come up with the idea of building a restaurant, don't call me after you sign the lease. Call me before you sign the lease. Because there might be things inside the tenancy that'll be like, mate, you need to get this rectified before we can even build your dream. It's okay to pay people before you commence on a lease. Because if you do that, you pay a professional, you know, whatever their professional fee may be, just to do a due diligence over it. Right? You might invite Sam out for a site inspection. Hey Sam, I'm thinking of putting the oven here. Sam will come, he'll have a look, and he'll go, hmm. And how wide do you want that door? Hmm. Well, I can engineer the oven this way, but if you really want this, you need to maybe position it there. So it's always about involving the professionals early on, and professionals that are professional are more than happy to take that on because it makes their work easier. It may like if somebody, like if you know someone might get an oven from you or a grill, whatever the case may be, if they told you about their thought, would you be upset?

SPEAKER_01 36:49

No. No, you'd be like if they invited me to a uh a site inspection and like really pushed for it, I might be a bit annoyed. Yeah, just send me a photo in dimensions. Well, there you go. But that's what you need, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:02

But you just the communication, right? Yeah, of course. I'm not I'm not saying that you need to be everywhere, but I'm just saying like if they if they communicate with you and let you know prior, then that's gonna set them up for a win. But the minute you sign your lease, that's the ticking time bomb, and that's where I'm getting at. And you know, instead of talking about lease negotiations and stuff, because today's about Sam, um Sam, what have you found has been the biggest challenge for you during your entire tenor currently?

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Probably like communicating maintenance. Like that's I know that sounds weird to say kind of out loud, but like you would know from a mechanical perspective your qualification, if you're a plumber or you're a Sparky or you're whatever, it stops somewhere, you know. And when you're building wood-fired kitchens, the most important conversation you can have early on is with mechanical engineers and architects because a mechanical engineer will tell you how to get that effluent, you know, smoke, airflow out, and how to get replacement air in. And it sounds super dry, but the amount of kitchens out there that are like smoky or just crazy hot, and could have just been fixed by having a conversation with the architect and the mechanical engineer and going, the ductwork needs to be easily accessed so it can be cleaned. That that should not be even a negotiable, like you know, no one should be able to negotiate out of that. Doesn't matter how low the bulkheads are, make it accessible. Make sure you have a contractor who is set to do all of that cleaning.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

How many people don't have access to their ducts? Too many.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Way too many, you know, and and you would know as well now costs have never been higher. And the thing that people compromise on is the stuff that you don't see. And maintenance, whether it's equipment or cleaning, you know, ductwork, canopy filters, all that kind of thing. And none of that is like legally my responsibility, but you associate a restaurant fire or sprinklers going off or whatever else with the thing that's the most visibly hot. And sometimes it has my badge on it, you know. Um, and that's not like a dig at anyone, you know, that there's plenty of examples out there of like other people's work and kitchens where on opening night the sprinklers go off. And when the sprinklers go off on open opening night, either the chefs are in the shit and they've built a freaking funeral pyre of like an inferno, the sprinkler fitter has fitted the wrong sprinkler heads that are meant for over an induction top, which happens all the time. Or down the track, you know, that maintenance has just, you know, no one's locked it into a contract. No one's got a a company that reminds you, hey, six months is the legal thing with your landlord. You're doing seven days a week, lunch and dinner. You should probably bring your frequency down to like two months. And again, none of that is like anyone's fault, but the more that you see it, the more you realize, all right, that anyone who's looked at their insurance policy in the past two years has realized like insurance companies, like, I don't want to piss anyone off because like they're powerful people. Wow. Because it's they set people up to not get their payout, and you can communicate as well as you want with them what system you have.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

But well, it's important that you get a broker, I think. In like in a sophisticated business, in a sophisticated space, sorry, restaurant businesses aren't so sophisticated, you can run it really simply, yeah. But the space is very technical and it has a lot of I'd say potential marginal rooms for error. Yeah. So hundreds, hundreds, so you need to get a I would say in this space, get an insurance broker. Pay, okay, pay the extra thousand bucks a year, whatever. Let the guy manage it. Because you know what? If something goes wrong, it's on him that he's the one that's supposed to vet it. That's the point of going through a broker that sets you up. So instead of designing your kitchen yourself, go through a kitchen designer because if something's wrong, it's a kitchen designer's fault. And you can you can claim compensation for it. You do layouts, right? I that's all I do.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Yeah, because like yeah, working with a team currently, I don't know if we do shout-outs like that, but these guys are phenomenal guys. And like knowing that the kitchen designer has covered workflow, yep, every utility, every you know, trade, every amount of you know, water movement, power, everything you're like, I feel safer on this project, and I feel better for the team.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

One million percent.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

So, yeah, the the answering your question though, I feel bad because like that's not the biggest challenge, but now currently, the way that the industry is at and where people want to kind of cut costs often is where the they just let things slide and you can't do that, you know, like it's you you have to keep your system clean and you have to know that there is a finite lifespan on everything that has a fan attached to it. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Sammy, what's been your biggest financial fuck up?

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Man, I'm glad this isn't live. I feel like wait, is this live? Is this line? No, it's not it's not I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Have you had like a a whole install go wrong?

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Where it's cost you a lot and you're like and set you back.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

It's it a lot of the time it's actually to if I'm honest, it's about like contracts. Yeah. You know, you when you build a business off relationships, you know, you actually expose yourself to when the the unforesee unforeseeable thing goes wrong, those relationships are the first thing to kind of be a casualty. And that sucks, but like at the end of the day, it's business. And having to negotiate, you know, issues when when there is a like a whether it's planning or whether it's you know that's business. Whatever. It's business, part of the it's part of the game. But when you're exposed and both sides have to come to the table and really have a a discussion. That's costly on your time. It's costly on your business. You know, and it's it it caught the the thing for me that hurt that sucks the most is that the relationship represents your business as well. And I I am the face of my business and without me using my hands and drawing things and designing things I'm not my business isn't running. So when a relationship suffers um you you first feel the casualty of the relationship and then after that you feel the the consequence of whoever's actions it was and sometimes it's financial sometimes it's well that person might have a bad opinion of me and at the end of the day you can take it personally you can move on you know but like as you said there's a lot of passion in this industry and from a financial perspective like there there are a few things that come to mind but I think the only thing I would really say is like if you're a contractor a small contractor just get someone to draw up contracts you know like get get a lawyer to to write up a contract for your works what it entails what your responsibilities are and where that where those responsibilities stop because like if you do that then that relationship doesn't actually have to suffer because it's purely business.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

And it's open book. And I have that with my design contracts and like all my retainer contracts is like hey guys this is what I do for you this is what I can do for you and this is where the buck stops. If something goes wrong if I did something wrong and in the contract it I also says if I've done something wrong this is how you're protected. It's a contract isn't just about a one-way street course you need to protect both parties and it limits liability for everybody. There's a limitation there's everything there and it's sort of outlined. So entering a contract is not a bad thing. It's you got to just read and understand it and ensure that there is ways that you're both covered on both ends and you have a service level agreement you must adhere to which is the SLA which we like to call it but the client also has to adhere to that too because that's how we price things if we don't price things based on time and effort then and and then we can't put a a a transactional value towards it and that's what our agreement is for but if it's just open ended well then the checkbook's open ended right so no definitely definitely hear that and I guess you know what are some of the you know is there any project that you've ever done that you're like wow I'm so proud of this I know you're proud of a lot of your work but what's been a standout or what was that aha moment for you there's so many.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

And and you were talking about the Christmas you know the holiday period thing but like Embler in Melbourne which is like one of my favorite restaurants in the world rebuilding that oven in like I think it was eight days from Boxing Day including demolition redesigning reworking cutting bricks building closing it all back in you know and then being able to have it like lit up re-plumbed and then back to service for a busy restaurant that that operates you know pretty much seems like around the clock that was a a real push for me but it was also just Dave is now a great friend you know we have mutual trust and I know that like if that unit is still going you know it might be a little worse for where but if that oven is still going I can build I know I can build an oven anywhere and you know and Esther as well Matt Lindsay is just like one of those people I'm like how like how do you just keep a level head any in Sydney that you love? Esther for sure man I just I I love going back to restaurants. I was at Polly last night I was at kiln last night you know I was at kiln this morning um poly for me is is a a big one because uh from a design perspective we reworked that whole half and it's changed the way they they cook there and that's that gives me the most satisfaction you know like I didn't build the the the unit there but we reworked kind of how it's mapped out and that thing's loaded all the time and for me that's it gives me the happy have you worked on any international projects yet yeah yeah so there's a a restaurant in Singapore called Kala it's actually the the highest food forest in the world so they they have native Australian plants growing on a rooftop overlooking Marina Bay sands and um that that kitchen was completely designed fabricated and built like at my workshop in the Danny Long Rangers on pallet sizes kind of modular and then it was packed down and shipped on a truck to a depot and then from that depot they air freighted it well because it was late which I feel really bad about I had an injury and it was just like same deal over Christmas period. Oh man and um but yeah it got air freighted and then they pallet jacked it into place and lit it up and it worked it worked it's there now you know like it's um it like I I the the only thing that sucks is I haven't been able to visit them yet because it's I'm keen yeah I love Singapore I'll show you around okay I've got some good friends yeah um Singapore's a great place and there's a lot of expats there lastly before before we wrap up is there anyone that really shaped your career or mentored you in the process that you'd like to sort of acknowledge your shout out to man like day Dave Ahall without a doubt um Hannah Green at Edda you know at that time like with Charlie Snadden and we're great friends now as well he's you know we call each other twice a week sometimes you know Aaron Fenwick over in in um the Adelaide Hills just people who've really um invested in my business but invested in me first and foremost you know have have really shaped who I am as a person as well as how I run my business and um yeah it's just I don't know it's just a beautiful industry. I know that there are probably people going to be watching this and be like hey man where's my shout at but this but for the people who come to mind who have really just they'll they'll call me not to be like I need this you know they'll they'll call to be like how are you? Yep and I think being included in in this industry as like an adjacent member you know solely construction but only really in hospitality it's those kind of um relationships where you're like this is my home now you know I'm not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Wow that's that's so beautiful to hear and lastly before we go I want you to look in that camera just down that barrel okay and just imagine that there is somebody who provides a service to the hospital industry to the guys on the front line what's one piece of advice you'd give them run no I see you I appreciate you oh man or what's one piece of advice you would have loved to give if you need a hug just call me yeah you know uh advice is it's it's hard because everyone's different you know yeah but like you know people love your opinion they they see you succeed they see that you're able to you know network with like the likes of Lennox and so many beautiful other chefs out there and and have your equipment in those venues yeah so as a as a as an equipment supplier and as somebody that provides a service to these venues you know what's one thing that you would you'd tell them to to pay potentially work on or or have or build upon or deliver on what whatever the case may be get a good accountant get a good accountant yeah um you know it's it's okay to fail it's okay to not be okay on a lot we throw that around a lot but man I've had conversations even in the past 24 hours with people where I'm like when I get home we're hanging out you know like let's just take a day you know be kind to yourself because it is a high fast paced high pressure industry and you know you don't have to be perfect and we eventually will click that the whole working yourself until you your family suffers or your your physical health suffers it's not sustainable you know um I also recognize from a this is that glass moving thing where I was like if Lennox sees this and he's like you didn't give me a shout out if there's one person who has informed how I design equipment to be more durable it's Lennox it's Lennox.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

I really appreciate you Lennox hasty thank you um no he's a he's a brother but yeah that's that's probably the advice I'd give it's a ramble it's all over the place but that sometimes that's that's what we are we're all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

That's it and that's why we're creative creatures that uh want to allow creative people to create even more beautiful things. Yeah that's is that a nice what a sign off how good is that I can't say anymore that's there you go done really nice Sammy it was a blessing to have you here my brother and uh I promise I will do my best to at least try call you once a fortnight now thanks man you're in the club I've got your numbers thank you