SPEAKER_00 0:00

Tell us a little bit about HoJack and how it came about. I started the restaurant with a team of four people. At that time I just decided I want to start cooking, I want to start a restaurant, and I want to share Malaysian food with the people of Sydney.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Food always brings people together. It's amazing to see that you know it's not just price-driven.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

All I need you to do is improve little bit by little bit every day. If you can just keep improving a bit by a bit over the time, time will tell.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

What's the secret in your eyes to dominating and gaining a hat?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Alright. Best advice I can give is Junda cool.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yes. How are you? Good thanks. Junda, I um I we yeah, we have we have some mutual friends, I found. And uh it's funny to see that I've I've heard your name in passing many times, and everyone's like, you know, you gotta go to Ho Jack. Is that how you pronounce it? HoJak, yeah. It's gotta go to Hojack, gotta go to Hojack. And this has been over the years, and I I'll be honest with you. I went three times and the line was that long. I said, Man, when I get to know the guy, I'm just gonna walk in there. Pretty much. What the fuck? You know, like it's it's crazy. Like you've created an amazing following. I feel like, you know, if you know, you know, sort of place, and the guys that know it, it's they they they love the food, but they love the community about it, and I guess you know, you transitioning from what I understand was something out of this industry, finance, I believe, and going into hospitality, you've been able to build this beautiful community, which now you see a line out the door every day. It's crazy. Tell us a little bit about HoJack and how it came about.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Uh yeah, a bit emotional. Thank you for those kind words. It's beautiful. Um community is the right word, I guess, to start off with. And I think in terms of I guess running a business or a restaurant, that has always been the person of who I am. And so everything that I do is how I built what I have.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

You can tell. I'm telling you, like, I I've been to a lot of venues, and I haven't even stepped foot in your venue because I can't get in. And I'm seriously, like, it it really screams community, and you know, food always brings people together, I guess, and especially in such a cultural cuisine like Malaysian, like yours, it's amazing to see that you know it's not just price-driven, there's quality, there's a name you've built, and then there's there's ownership of yes, this is Hojack. You know, so continue.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Anyway, so I started Hoja about 10 years ago, and it was uh in a food court in Stratfield, and it was a 12-seater restaurant, and I started the restaurant with uh a team of four people, and at that time I just decided you know what? I want to start cooking, I want to start a restaurant, and I want to uh share the food of I share Malaysian food with the people of Sydney. Uh what a lot of people didn't know, and what I didn't know was I wasn't a trained chef, so I did not go to culinary school, I did not uh work in any other restaurants before. I just one day decided to appoint myself head chef. And uh, you know, it was a pretty uh big, big and ballsy mover, yes. But uh the challenge there was when I opened up, I was like, what do I want to do? Like, what kind of food do I want to serve? And for the first nine months, it was pretty much trying to find uh my identity. And because uh I was an immigrant, I came here when I was 16 and for school and everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

And your parents just sent you out here?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

My parents deported me. They didn't send me here, they deported me. Uh I was a naughty boy back in Malaysia, you know. So they sent me here for school. Um you had a network here, family, anyone to look after you? No, so it was just my brother and I. He was I was 16 and he was 14, and we went to uh I went I I did year 11. And so just those few years were probably like one of the toughest of my life.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Did you go to a boarding school?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

No, so we just went to a public school and they uh rented an apartment for us, and then we just uh, you know, 16 years old, in a way it wasn't too bad. Like you there was no parents.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Freedom in this country is freedom.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Do you want to go to school today? Let me see how I feel.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Wow, so they just literally they rented the apartment online, they probably organized it over the phone with some mutual people that they may know.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

This is where you stay, this is where you go to school.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Correct, correct. It was about a 10-minute walk. Um, and they gave me or us $150 a week. And so soon enough we were to realize that wow, it's not enough. All right, and this is where my dad, you know, he's hard, but he his lessons are always so important. And I go, Dad, it's not enough. And he goes, Well then do what other people do. I was like, Well, what is it? Get a job. And so I started working pretty much. Had to do, had to go to school, had to work, and to go to uni, had to go to work as well. And so in a way, it has uh I guess being hardworking was instilled from a very young age. Now back to uh I guess uh Stratfield we were saying, right? Uh it was pretty much trying to find identity and it was research, and when it first opened, I was like, I put everything in. We weren't busy, nobody knew who I was, nobody knew what Hoja was, nobody knew what it was. It was just another restaurant in the food court. But over time, uh I always felt that if How did you know Stratfield?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

How do you know food court?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Like what made you oh so before that, when I so I graduated in uh in a finance degree. I came out and worked for the banks, but food has always been my passion. I because coming to Sydney at the age of 16, I had to cook for myself. And so that's why I really fell in love with cooking. Of course, when I was younger growing up, my grandmother cooked a lot, and of course, grandma's food is always the best. Can't beat it. Can't beat it. And coming here at 16, 17, 18, like at those early years, I was always homesick, you know. And the best way to cure homesickness is through food, to me anyway. But at that time, I was in Hurstville, and you were talking about 22 years ago. There weren't that many Malaysian restaurants. And the Malaysian restaurant in Hurstville at that time was serving beef noodle soup fur, and it was also serving Mongolian lamb and stuff like that. I go, that's not Malaysian food. So I started learning cooking, and then it became a mission of mine where why why I did Ho Chi was because I wanted to prepare uh provide that platform because I know there are gonna be a lot of people who are homesick too, but there's not that many good uh like proper Malaysian food. And so that's that was one of my mission objectives back then. But anyway, uh back back to it again. So uh after working for the banks for a year and a half, I just decided, you know what, screw this. I wanna follow my passion because I was still young. And I told my dad Asian parents being Asian parents, like, you know, you gotta get a good job, you gotta get a good all kind of things. I said, look that, let me try this. I'm just gonna quit. I'm just gonna follow my passion, and if I fail, I'm still young. You know, what's the there's nothing to lose. There's nothing to lose. So at 23 or 24, I left the banks, I walked into the cafe, and I asked them to teach me how to make a coffee. And that's how I entered the industry. At 20. Yeah, around 24, 25, I opened a cafe first. It was called Paparotti, right? And I guess with uh the cafe was called paparotti. The cafe was called paparotti. Okay, and with I guess with uh not to confuse it with the chain. It is it was the chain. I saw brought it over from here, yep. And within two years, I had 18 cafes in the whole of Australia. So I guess that's where I worked, like I was in my prime, I was working really hard, I was chasing, and then two years later, that's when uh when I was 28, that's when I decided that I really wanted to do Malaysian food, and that's when I started Hojias, so 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

So let's just take a quick second, just because I'm my mind's blown right now. You went back to Malaysia, yep, you sourced the brand that was there. Yep, you took the license for it for Australia. Correct. What made you pick paparotti?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Uh I liked it. So at that time it was a f a phase of this these Mexican buns that that that was really good. And of course, there was Roti Boy, there was all that kind of things, but paparotti at that time was up and coming, so the fees to bring it in wasn't too high, and I could actually afford to do that. And I opened the first paparotti cafe in Kogra.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Okay. So you you took on you took on the cafe, they gave you all the recipe cards, they gave you the operational the SOPs, or did you have to do anything yourself?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Uh the coffees, the ice cream. So basically, by getting the paparotti, it was just the bun.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

And the bun alone in Australia, you're not gonna survive. It's only like at that time it was a dollar eighty per bun. Yeah. There's no volume, there's no population here. So that's when I turned into a whole cafe where there was, you know, there was coffees, there was shakes, there was there was a whole ice cream, the telado bar.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

You created a beverage around it, like a dessert bar?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Like a dessert cafe, yeah. And then we were making waffles and pancakes and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

And then after you did that, you personally expanded to those 18 sites or did you sell them off?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Uh so I personally had six, all of them in Sydney, and then I had licensees in the other states.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Why licensee versus franchise? Lower cost. Pretty much lower cost. And were you invested with those licensees or no? Uh no. Okay, great. So you had the licensees in other states, they ran that. And what's Paparodis doing now? Did you sell it?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, I did. So I pretty much uh decided when I wanted to open Hoja to get rid of all of that and hand it uh my contract was coming up anyway. So I did I only had the contract for about uh four or five years or something like that. And it was coming up, and because there were so many already and we would they wanted to renew uh the next price tag was pretty high. It was a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

They know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Of course. And so that's when I that's when that's also why I decided like you know, I want to start cooking right now because I think the one thing that I found right after that, in between, I actually brought this Malaysian chain from Melbourne down, that's why it was called Pataling Street. So they were they had many, many branches, six, seven branches in Melbourne. And I opened the one that was where we were part of. We opened in George Street, uh Kingsford, and we had they had like four branches here. So I was running that as well. Like in in in a way, Patalang, what whose name was that? It was Malaysian food. Malaysian food. Is it as bold? Uh hawker food, pretty much, like Malaysian hawker food. Yeah, and then that was one of the things that I realized with uh I guess Paparodi and then Patalang Street as well. It was that I had so many ideas and I had so many ways to like I think would make the business better. But I guess that's the problem with a licensee or or or a parent company.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Or a franchise, whatever they did.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

I didn't have the freedom and they wouldn't let me do what I wanted to with you know the on the creative side of things or the the the consistency and quality control.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah, I find it's a it's a struggle, right? Especially um because when I consult brands uh across the globe, especially when they're targeting Australia, my biggest thing is before it comes in the country, they need to learn that they need to be able to localize. Like Starbucks failed. Yep, and they're a billion-dollar company, and they failed for two reasons. Or w one major reason. They didn't localize. Yeah. Who doesn't put a flat white and a long black on a menu? Yeah. Right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

But then it's also, I guess, my the way you see it, right? It's also reason I mean that's why they do it because that same model was so successful in so many, many other countries.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

It is, but even when you go to other countries, especially like Australia is a very this is this is for everyone listening. Australia is a very educated palate. Yeah, definitely. Compared to the world, and we have such a small population, and we're spoilt for choice, and we're snobs. On the weekend, my wife and I go, we want to go for coffee. Nah, I don't want to go there. I want specialty coffee. Yeah, but it's just a latte. Nah. I feel like, you know, I'm happy to pay $6.50 for a latte today because I want specialty coffee. Yep. Where somewhere else in the world, you just like just grab a coffee, you know? Yeah. But in Sydney, we're like, no, I want to go there. No, this is what I want. And that's the thing that allows I I guess Australia to keep playing at that at that level. Like we're playing in the big leagues without the population. And I always think, like, I just came back from New York, and you know, if you went and opened up in New York, you would dominate. Because the it's not about the brand, it's not about the concept, no, it's about the way that Australians conduct business.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

And what we have to go through in hospitality here. I actually think it's one of the toughest industries. That's why I love it, and it gets me up every morning as a challenge. Yeah. Because surviving in this market and actually giving and paying people professional income levels, like everyone's getting paid as a professional. No one's getting there's no low income earners here. They're getting paid. Um which they deserve to, by the way. But we can play in this level, right? Where you go you go to the States, for example, an executive chef of a Omikaze bar might earn 30,000 US a year. Yeah. But he's living off tips. Where here we're like, oh, head chef, 120k plus super plus tax. He's walking out with 150k. Yep. Right? And that's that's your level of operation to play on. But I digress, but I just like to set the tone of the the importance that people need to understand that the challenges that Australian business owners face, especially in hospitality, it's a chat, it's a it's it's a daunting road. It's not easy, it's one of the hardest. You know, it's very, very hard. But um, so after that, after that Malaysian brand and after the Paparodis, which was another Malaysian brand, you sort of figured out okay, I've seen how these guys do it. I'm not saying I'm better than them, but I think I want to do my own thing. Pretty much. And you said I want to bring a piece of home to Sydney. So you started Hojack. And what does Hojack mean?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Hojak basically translates to uh good eats. Ho being good. Chia means eat so delicious. Good eats in uh Fujian or Hokkien.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then and then how did you start Hojak? What was the first store?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, so the first store was in uh Stratfield, and uh my business partner and I would put everything in. Uh we opened in a small one, 12-seater, uh team of five people.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Another 12-seater. You like your 12-seaters?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Oh no, no, so the first one was 12-seaters. You're talking about so they're actually all Hoja in Strathfield it was Hoja, and then that's Hoja Haymarket, and then that's Hoja Town Hall.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah. So after uh, I guess a year of finding identity, and then we started uh cooking, I guess, decent decent food. The queue started getting pretty long. And I was about an hour and a half wait for for uh our food. Well, because it was too small, it was really, really small. And that's when everyone just goes, just go, you gotta open one in the city, you gotta go on open one in the city, you gotta be you know, you gotta mean, uh go go go down and compete and you know, try it. And then at that point of my I guess career, you could call it now, I felt like I was ready. And so that's when we actually went hunting and we found the spot in Haymarket, the one uh the one that I that I went to and waited. Yeah. And that was a 110 seater, and we go, wow, that's a big jump from 12 seats to 110. And so then as usual, we again put everything in, all in, big project, two million dollars, uh set everything up, and when the moment we opened it was around uh early December. We thought we we managed to catch the Christmas rush, we're gonna be busy. People been asking us to open, they know us, and we opened the doors, did like 24 covers a day. 24 covers a day, every single day. The rent was 10 grand. I had employees, I had everyone there. We were bleeding, like bleeding so hard. And I go, what went wrong? So the concept as well is when I opened Stratfield, the identity that I found there was I wanted to show uh the Malaysian street foods. Then when I opened the second one, uh I wanted to honor my grandma. So she's she's a big part, big influence of my life. And I and I wanted to go, you know what? I'm gonna showcase grandma's cooking here. I'm gonna put grandma's cooking on the menu. And I guess one of the biggest things that people told me at that time was, You're you're fucking crazy. And I said, Why? Who wants to go and pay money at a restaurant to eat your grandma's cooking? Like, you know, who wants to do that? This we're talking about this is about uh seven years back now, right? Who wants to do that? At the time it was different, and so I said, let's just try. Let's just believe, I still believe I want to honor her. She at that time she was about to uh move on, she wasn't doing well, and so I said, let's do that. And again, like I said, December, January, February, 24 covers a day at a 110 seat restaurant, 24 covers lunch and dinner, right? It was bad. We were crying, and we just every time we walk out the door, what's going on here? Chinatown's fucking busy, there's so many people, like what is happening, right? But and and and the lowest point of that was that it was so bad, my bank account was completely wiped out, my business partner was completely wiped out. We had I had to borrow money from my friends, I had to borrow money from my dad, and I think that was probably one of the lowest points in my life. Uh things started to change, but we hung out. We we just kept believing, and we just kept believing that uh what we were doing was different, and that the staff was probably uh we just wanted to hang out and see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

How did you sustain that? You you were lucky enough that you had you know a couple hands to lean on for some money. So we had the first and everything. We had the first restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah. Yeah. The first restaurant, whatever money we were making from there, went straight in there to pay off the bills. So we like again, we were bleeding and and we had some reserve in the bank, but the moment that was wiped out, we had to go borrow. Like borrow, borrow, borrow, borrow. And I guess in a way, in in the turn of things, uh around March or April, that's when Broadsheet wrote an article about us. And then from then on, that was in the span of March, April, Broadsheet, and then it was the Good Food Guide. Did you reach out to Broadsheet? No, they came. And then uh by October, we actually won the best restaurant of the year in timeout. And so it literally went from 24 covers in January, February to to full house in or almost full house, 80% capacity in March, April. And then for another five months, the moment we got the best restaurant in Sydney, it just went boom uh almost instantly, double. And that's when we actually realized that what we were actually doing uh what we believed in what sorry, what we were doing, like we believed in it, and it actually pulled off. Um but of course, like what you said, it's not just about doing it there, like uh having a plan and everything.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

It's about executing it, it's about like facing all that, that the stress and the everything everyday challenging, like what yeah, what's what's one technique that you that you that you do still now to combat those challenges?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Okay, so I think for me, a lot of the things that I do is I believe in people, right? And I invest in people. And the way I build my team or build my staff up is I treat them, I know it's gonna sound cliche, I treat them like family. And I believe that those who actually work with me or I work with, they're my kids. And I have a lot of kids. Like I'm always the father figure there. And when we work, I'm not just telling them how to cook something. I'm trying to, I teach them how to I guess win or move ahead in life. And you know, coming to to work with me every day and stuff like that, it's not just about cooking. Like we don't just you know, that's not the focus. It's always about how you're gonna improve, how you're gonna improve, how you're gonna improve. And one of the things I always tell them is you just if even a decision uh making a decision, you make the right one, good, learn from it. You make a bad one, you make the wrong one, good, learn from it. All I need you to do is improve little bit by little bit every day. If you can just keep improving a bit by a bit, a bit, over the time, time will tell, over the years, time will tell that you've improved and that's how you go higher and better and better and better. And so that's one of the things, like, you know, for all these challenges.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And and what keeps you what keeps that, you know, that strong bond in your team? Because I know, especially now, people put post pandemic, they're struggling to find that synergy in their team. Yeah. You know, for you to be able to scale to the scale that you've got, it's around the people that you have around you. But in such a competitive market, how do you keep them at home?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

So it's what I do every day. So even when the pandemic came, and us being an Asian restaurant and stuff like that, a lot of them were skilled visa workers, they were immigrants and stuff like that. When the pandemic came, the government literally said, if you can't afford, go back to your country the first few weeks. And like what 70% of them were not supported by your government. What I did was if you wanted to stay, stay, I'll pay you. Just tell me how much rent you need a week, and that's how much shift I'm gonna give you, even though there was no work to do. And if you actually and I told him, do not go hungry, do not staff this off during the pandemic. I said, since we're all open for takeaway anyway, Hoja will always have a staff meal for you. If you ever need food, just come and eat. And so what I did back then was to fight for them, was to keep them, was to keep a roof on over their head. Now, when it came uh after the pandemic, you know what I mean? So they were all still here. They were they would have just been so appreciative. Appreciative, yes, but more so they understand, I guess, the real uh hardship value of family. Like, you know what I mean? Family, like family does this for you. And when you come in to my family, there will always be a home that we will always look after each other. And so I guess to answer your question, the what do I do is like it's just something that I do every day. It's just me as a person that that if you ever get to work with me, and you will see it, like it's just there.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

That it's just natural, it's your second nature, yes, yeah. So I guess that's where you know goes back to your your strong family ties, your grandmother's influence of a full table, your passion and drive to honour her. Not only that, but you know, you're a seasoned hospitality expert, you've expanded multiple venues, brought multiple chains, and you know how important people is in your business to grow. And during their darkest times, you've always said, Hey, you know, put money aside, there's a roof over your head, and there's something for you to eat. And that's as in simple terms, that's what that's what you've done, and that's amazing. So, you know, a lot of people get um fixated on public relations and PR, right? On on PR, like broadsheet, timeout, good food guide. And a lot of outsiders that are viewing you would think you went and called them and told them to come in, right? But you said openly and and honestly that you didn't. What do you think drew them in when there was 24 people coming and eat at your place? What drew them into HoJack in Haymarket to write an article about you?

SPEAKER_00 24:47

So again, this this one I think it would have to be the product itself. If it's a good product, eventually they will come. It's just how long for like for me, in my case, how long could I hang it hang out for? Like, how long could I stay there until they actually came? And of course, there are many times where they come and they still they they would choose to not uh write about it if it's not good, you know what I'm saying? Um and again, like I said, luckily enough for me, it's that, but again, at the same time, uh, as I grow, there are many times where we the they would ask to if you wanted to to like share recipes and all that things, and then again, like I said, uh uh for me, yes, sure. Take it my recipes, take it. Take it. Like, but that's your top seller. Take it. Because I know that recipes are one thing, running a whole restaurant is a whole different thing. And you can have the best recipes in the world, but if you can't run a restaurant, what what uses the recipe? So I guess again, um for me the main point why I say that is just I guess generosity, being generous, like just you know, up front, just like you know, take it, take it, take it. Um I always uh believe and I always prefer to give than to take. So I give, give, give, give, give. And who knows, maybe that's my luck, my karma that that that that that they came and things turned, you know. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

And post Haymarket and and the the amazing community that you built, what grew from there?

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yep, so Haymarket was like you said, the queue was there, uh my grandmother was being honored, uh, it was big. We were doing a lot of community events, we're raising money for like you know, a lot of a lot of different things, big support. Uh, that's when I guess it came to a uh point of my career where I go, if we're that busy and like our food's that good, how come why aren't we why aren't we one of the best restaurants in Australia? Why do I not even have a hat and stuff like that? So that's when I started dreaming about another restaurant where I could maybe turn it, like uh challenge myself as a chef and actually come up with a cuisine because at that point I was thinking maybe Self-proclaimed chef. Self-proclaimed chef.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

But you you you own it, yeah, you earned it.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Not yet, not yet, not yet. I was on my way, to be honest. I was on my way. So again, yeah, I was on my way because the the stuff in Strathfield, it was pretty much the food they can find in the streets of Malaysia. I just recreated it, tweaked it, and made it a better version. The staff in Haymarket was my grandmother's cooking, which obviously she cooked it for me. I tweaked it and made it, you know, your version of better.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Cellable. Sellable, localized.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

So then one day, the uh town hall, which is uh used to be the Cuban place. I don't know if you remember the Cuban place. So there's they're an institution to like salsa dancing, all that kind of stuff. They decided to close down after like I think almost 20 years. And I used to go there during uni days for for drinks and tequila and cigar and all that kind of things. And I don't know how, but the agent somehow managed to get our number and goes, like, do you want to come and check it out? And so we went and checked it out. Nice good venue, dead smack in the CBD, and I went, Maybe this is the place. And that's when I started dreaming, all right. We have a bar, we have this, we have that. Maybe this this thing that I'm chasing so much right now, maybe I'll get it. And so then we went in. Right, we went in, we put everything in and again. I can feel the pain, man. From 110 to 180 seats, uh, four million dollar project. Uh all in, all in. Started doing uh I finally thought, okay, I'm gonna do a menu that I create, I created dishes that I I create. I was yeah, as we did our RD and all the kind of things, very good. But like all big projects, as we were meant to open in November, it got delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, and we could finally open our doors in April on a Friday. Or was it a March? Basically, we opened the doors on Friday, on Saturday, the government announced we're going to lock down on Monday. That was March. That was March. What a disgusting period. Yeah. So I opened Hoja Town Hall two days before our first ever lockdown in New South Wales. Well, yeah, when we opened on Friday, long cue, like nice. I was like, finally, my luck. It's changed. I had so much struggle with the first one, I was crying with the second one, and I thought third one, you know, finally with the backing and the support that we had, something out of our control came. And you know, you know how it went for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

You still feel it though, get goosebumps now. Yeah. Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

So and then so the that that particular restaurant was the hardest because that was when we had three restaurants, we had a whole bunch of employees. Again, like I told you that we had to keep. But prior to that, we like you know, uh I actually heard about uh COVID in December, March, and like we were talking about it, like what if this was like a Spanish flu, like blah blah. How long would it take it? Then you know, we go like it would take about two years or so, and then we started going to the banks, we started borrowing a little bit of money to build up the reserves so that we could, you know, fight and combat all of this. But yeah, tunnel was extremely, extremely expensive for us to open two days before the first lockdown. Uh we couldn't get any of the help because we couldn't show that there was a drop in revenue from the past year or something.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah, it had to be at a minimum of 12 months trading.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Yeah. Jeez. So job keeper, all that kind of stuff. Zero. And I had to then keep or keep my stuff by by forking it out through my own in my own pocket, you know. And yeah, so we did that. We we wrote the whole uh roller coaster, the COVID, you know. But as we came out, uh, you know, uh in the second year, after the first year, we pretty much everything that I wanted at Town Hall, despite all of that, uh came through. So I got we got a hat, uh, we got into the gourmet traveler top 80 restaurants, we were in the delicious 100, top 100 restaurants as well. And that particular year I was actually nominated as uh Chef of the Year for Good Food. Wow. And to me, I thought to myself, I'm not a chef, like I'm not a trained chef. But then when I actually look at it, like the guys who get nominated, is we don't get so much nominated because of like how well we cook. It's about how much we impact the industry, like how much things we did. And to be honest, during the pandemic, that was when uh you went to work. I went to work, I really, really went to work, and everything that I did I shared on Instagram, everything, uh any advice or whatever, I just put it out there, and you know, people, restaurants, three-headed, two-headed restaurants, and everyone, they were coming to me, they were asking me for advice. I say, sure, this is what you should do, this is what we're gonna do, etc. etc. etc. And we supported here and all that kind of things. And I think that was the period where I guess uh I became like this old man who lost a lot of hair, and and it was the you know words of wisdom from from from the lowest point of my life borrowing money to the hardest point of my life trying to to to keep all my employees, three restaurants, stay afloat, and all the kind of things. And and uh yeah, I guess you know, we we survived.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yeah, we survived, and you have a like an amazing legacy that you've that you can truly say that you you're gonna be leaving behind and and you haven't even started yet, in my opinion. You're just getting started. Tell me on the on the notion of the hat, and I know that was a personal challenge for you, right? What's what's the secret in your eyes to dominating and gaining a hat? There are people out there right now that are listening that have the same hunger, drive, and perception as you. They know that they can do it. They know that they're this dish is you know, you said something before where you said I took Malaysian street food and I made it better. That's a man with conviction, and that's someone someone that truly believes in his product. Or you took your grandma's dish and you made it sellable. Like those words don't come easy. And when you say that sort of stuff, someone like me would be reserved and say, No, you localize it, you know, you really can't make it better, but you believe that you made it better, and you've shown that impact. So people have that same conviction on their product. How would you advise them to chase that hat?

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Alright. Best advice I can give is it all starts within. It all starts within it's the people that help you work there who help the business. If they're happy, everything's gonna project out as happy. That's number one. Number two, you take care of them, they'll take care of you, they'll take care of your business. And number three, of course, it's a cliche. Every customer is a VIP. It's you don't break it down to people who spend high, you don't break it down to people who spend low. Whoever walks in is a VIP. So I I actually wrote this in my book. It's uh I have I I I take the restaurant business or or whenever I jump into a kitchen as the uh opening night uh uh thing in in in a theater, right? Where um like the premiere, the grand opening. Not just the premiere, like just uh uh uh showtime. It's showtime. Okay, showtime, right? So all these actors and actresses they they practice and they rehearse and they rehearse and they rehearse and they rehearse and they rehearse thousands and thousands of times and they do a show in Sydney. I'm sorry, they do thousands of shows in Sydney, they do thousands of shows in in uh Melbourne. So it's but when it comes to let's say uh another sport and it's the 100,000 times doing the same thing, reading the same lines, but for the audience, it's actually their first time. So that's the same thing as when I go in to cook. I may have cooked this dish a hundred thousand times, but the person who's eating it is probably their first time, and I'm gonna give them the best show, and that's how I see, or that's how I feel when I cook, and I make sure that uh all of my chefs feel the same way too. And so it comes back to point number three: every customer that comes in is a VIP, it's their first time, give them a good show.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Wow, that's amazing. And if there's uh if there's one piece of advice you'd give to that aspiring entrepreneur, restaurateur, cafe operator, right? I want you to look down the barrel of the camera here and give them that one piece of advice before they go on their journey.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

To open a restaurant or cafe? Yeah, to open a business. Dream big, work hard, and remember, business always comes first.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Thank you so much. I I truly admire your um your devotion to the industry, the impact that you've done, and just in this short time that I've gotten to know you, I feel like, you know, I've known you for a lifetime now, and it's uh that's that's just I can really see how much you care about your people and your business. Um what's on the cards for you next?

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Uh so we're opening uh in Melbourne in December, and we're opening the fish market next year as well. In Sydney? In Sydney, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

What are you opening there?

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Uh it's gonna be uh a Malaysian grill house. So uh I probably when I wanted to go in, I said I wanted to sell like steak and chicken, like Malaysian style, uh Western kind of style uh food over there, so it's like a surf and turf. And they go, No, it's a fish market. And I said, can you imagine how many people uh who comes to the fish market, who gets dragged to the fish market, but don't eat anything because they're either allergic or they just don't like seafood. Now, can you imagine how many people who don't even come to the fish market just because they're allergic or they don't like seafood? Why wouldn't you let me sell meat here? And after going left and right, they finally go, Okay, let's do it. And so it's gonna be like a seven-tif menu at the fish market. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Well, I can't I can't wait to uh I can't wait to see that. And I hope I uh Oh wait, I have a question for you right now. Yes, go for it. Yeah, when are you coming to uh Hoja next? Well, I'm waiting for the whenever you want the table's ready. I'll make sure the lighting isn't there. Uh you know what? I'm gonna round up a table. Is it good in a group environment?

SPEAKER_00 37:52

So every venue is different. Come to all for a big group. Stratford is just uh small, it's like a takeaway uh kind of concept right now because we had to redo it. And Haymarket is more of like uh home cooked food, like you know, it's uh you know, where no frills and all that kind of stuff. But come to town hall if you wanna have fun.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Have fun in the elevated experience at Town Hall, elevated experience and everything. But I want to feel the real, like the the guts. You get it at Town Hall, too. You get at Town Hall, you'll get it at Town Hall too, for sure. All right, done. Ben, table, town hall, definitely gotta book it in. All right, man. Thank you so much again. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

I really appreciate it. Thank you.