SPEAKER_00 0:00

What do you think the key success to that is?

SPEAKER_02 0:02

You're not selling through social media, you're not selling your product, you're selling the experience.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

But what's one thing that you learned there that you always hold on to?

SPEAKER_01 0:10

We want to build a community. And it's good because like everybody feels included.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Welcome to the Hospo Dojo Podcast. In today's episode, we sit down with the founders of Happy Field, Chris and Jesse, who have just been nominated and awarded the Cafe of the Year. Happy Field is renowned for its exceptional coffee, innovative brunch menu, and warm welcoming atmosphere. We're going to be exploring their unique approach to creating a standout cafe experience and what it means to be recognized as the best cafe in Australia. Welcome, Chris. Welcome, Jesse. Hello, thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

What's going on?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Guys, the area of Haberfield, but for reigniting the industry.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I like that. Reigniting the industry. We like it. We like it, Paul.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

You guys have truly reignited the industry. Um you know, whenever I to be honest, whenever I look for a bit of inspiration or a pick-me-up, it's either I come in here for a coffee and it just reminds me of what good what great hospitality is. And whoever I, you know, cross paths with um that's in the industry, whether they're from interstate or uh fellow colleagues in the in in the hospitality space, and we get talking. I always say, Have you guys ever tried Happy Field? And if they say no, I say, What the fuck are you doing? So then I'll just message you and try and get a table. Try and get a table on the weekend on Saturday, the busiest day. And don't worry, guys, I don't get special treatment. I get a timer. Fucking an hour and a half, your bills paid, get out. No, but um, welcome to the pod and uh thank you, thank you for being here. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Thanks for having us. Welcome to the happy room.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

So, this is a little new addition to to the Happy Field place.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

It is, it is almost a year old. Yeah, uh it took us over a year to get it approved. Almost two years old, but only been open almost a year.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, just come a little bit close to the mic. Yeah, don't worry about it. Squeeze in, squeeze in, make sure the knees are touching. Christos, what even if you've got to bring it closer or bend here? We are yeah, that's that. Yeah, it's better. Now I can hear. Is that better? Yeah, good. Thank you. The sounds weren't any good. Yes, yeah, right. Better, yes, amazing. So um, yeah, where were we at? So when did you guys before we get into how you guys started Happy Field, we want to get to know you a little bit. All right. I know you from like deep in the weeds back in the day, hanging around the west. But I don't know, Jesse.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

He was hanging around the west, but this boy was a Western. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was he was only for a year. It was in the West, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

It was in the West. But Jesse, let's give us a bit about you. Where what's your what's your background? Where are you from?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I uh well, born and raised Toronto, Canada. Okay. Um yeah, pretty much lived there my whole life. Uh my mother is West Indian, my father is West African. Okay. And um, yeah, I came to Australia maybe called 10 years now, 10 years ago as like a backpacker, working holiday flex, whatever. Thought I was gonna hate it, but here we are.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, and then 10 years, 10 years in, and what's your what's your hospitality background?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

I uh well, I kind of fell into it when I was younger and um really liked it. And then I went to culinary school back home, worked in a lot of restaurants. Best restaurant in Toronto. What restaurant was that? It's called Marbin. Marbin. Yeah, we're number one. Number one. What was my so we were like um one of the first to do like um like whole animal butchery? Wow. We're doing yeah, pretty much farm to table kind of thing. Okay, we'll get like whole cows, whole pigs, break them down in front of the customers. Still open? I'm pretty sure it's still gone. Yeah, wow. Still rocking. The head the head chef is gone now. There must be 10 chefs since I've been there. But um, it was a lot of fun. It's definitely a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

And then you moved here. Did you work in Hotspone when you came?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

So basically, yeah, I moved here because I um I used to work with a dude back home. He married an Australian girl, and he was working at a cafe in Melbourne. Okay, and um, I guess he needed some help, and he was just like, Jess, like, what are you doing? Come to Australia, kind of thing. And um, yeah, I knew nothing about this country. Yeah, not gonna front or whatever. Yeah, I thought it was all kangaroos and desert and crappy crawlies and whatever you guys are. Pretty much, pretty much. I was very ignorant. Anyway, I um I decided to come and tell my mom I'm coming. She goes, all the best, have fun with it. Yeah, and um, yeah, and pretty much as soon as I landed, very next day, I was working in a cafe in Footscray, never worked in a cafe in my life, knew nothing about Smash Tavo and all that. So I really got stuck in. We were doing like it's crazy. We're doing like 200 covers a day, and it was just literally me, him, and the kitchen hand. Wow, and I was getting pumped on the X section, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

And uh it was good, it was good, it was a good experience. Nice, yeah. And you know, one beautiful part about that story is you you asked the blessing of your mom, which is nice. You know, I feel like whenever you want to go on a journey in life, the people closest around you need to support you.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Oh, it's funny you say that because check this. So when I first told her I was gonna come see in, she goes, Oh, yeah, Australia, I see on TV, it'll be fun. You should go, you should go. The very next day, I bought a plane ticket. I said, Mom, I bought the ticket, I'm going. She goes, No, what do you mean you're going? I didn't think you were serious. No, you can't go, you can't go. Yeah, it was very funny. But she still gave her a blessing at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I guess so. I guess so. Yeah, she did. That's nice. And Chris?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Um, I kind of fell in it as well. Uh, first hospital job when I was 15. Kind of got offered the job. I was working at uh Dalton House for seven, eight years.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Institution.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Institution started at Sylvania Waters. Learn about catering, learn how to learn about service, learn how to hustle, learn how to Paul does a great job. Learn how to work till 4 a.m. and start early the next morning. Okay. Different different days back then. Well, 18 years ago now. So I guess I'm 18 years in the industry. Yep. Ended up managing some venues at Dalton House. Uh kind of thought if I'm gonna stay in the industry, I want to open a business one day. I didn't think it was gonna be a reception center, so left Dalton House and found my way to the grounds. Okay, did four years there, and then that's where we met Jesse. Okay, and uh left the grounds, did a couple other things, and eventually opened Happyfield.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

So you've worked for institutions. Couple, yeah, couple.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

That's great. And now we own one. Now you own one.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

That's amazing. That's amazing. And you know, uh, what did you were you always out of the kitchen, always just front of a house?

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Yeah, I wanted so at school I studied hospitality and food technology um before I um started my first hospitality job. Food technology, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

It's like that's what we call cooking.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

It's cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

Kind of, it's like more it's like culinary class.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Is it actually? You cook it.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

No, no, no, yeah, you do cook a little bit, but it's like 80% theory, 20% practical. Yeah, hospitality was more cooking. Food technology was all like the um learning about salmonella and all. Oh, right, okay, so like practical. The science behind food. So I was doing those two subjects and I thought I wanted to be a chef, and then my very first day at Dalton House was front of house, and I said I'm not gonna be a chef. That was like an intense kitchen, yeah. That was like kitchen nightmares on uh or hell's kitchen on steroids. That's like hell's kitchen on steroids. Like you could imagine. It's not that they're it's not that they're treated people. It's like militant because it's um you're cooking for two functions at the same time, 400 people, 300 people, that one's six courses, that one's four courses, and it's like full on, yeah, you know, anti pasta, anti pasta, entree, entree, main course, main course, dessert, dessert, dog cheat. They've got like you know, now and now they've got like eight venues, and mate.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

I don't God knows how many they have now, but I could just imagine how many people they cook for at one time, especially on any given Saturday night. Yeah, like they're feeding thousands of people, yeah. Yeah, thousands, and that's that's amazing. And you know, Jesse, for you, what's um what's one thing that you learnt at that restaurant in Canada? What's like if you took away one thing from there? I love how you said like you guys used to do full animal butchery, but what's one thing that you learned there that you always hold on to?

SPEAKER_01 8:37

I think um for us we were very um we were we want to build a community, so it was something like so say it was us, but we tried to like so for example, we did like Sausage League, we're invite all the restaurants from all over Toronto to come compete, make sausages. Maddie Matheson used to come through because his restaurant was a third. Long before social media, long before when he was running parts and labor back in Toronto, he used to come to Marvin and cook sausages before the bear. Before long before the bear, long before the bear. And um, yeah, we're just big on community. Like when people would come, like chefs would come, they would sit at the pass, you ball them out, yeah, have some laughs and some shots, drinks, and it was just like it was a community. That's beautiful, man. Yeah, and it's good because like everybody feels included. Yeah, you know what I mean? And it's you feel like you're a part of something. And I think that's one of the biggest things I took from there.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

That's amazing. And Chris, something you know, you've worked in so many some of Sydney's greatest institutions and businesses in hospitality. I'm talking guys that feed a lot of people every day. A lot of people. What's one thing you learn from your tenants there?

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Um, just how to treat the guests, especially at Dalton House, you know, working there seven, eight years from 15 to supervising weddings from 18 to managing venues at 21. Like just how to treat the guests, because your guests, uh your bride and groom and your bridal parties, and the parents of the groom, parents of the bride, and then you've got 400 other people that are potential future clients. So it's like A plus service. Don't if if the groom tells you he wants Tim Tams, this is before Uber Eats, you're you're getting Tim Tams from somewhere. So it's like no is not in your vocabulary at a venue like that. So yeah, just kind of that's probably one of the things I don't know and that was at the grounds as well. It's just like we don't say no.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

No, no is not.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

That doesn't mean like you know, we're giving people Ferraris, but there's ways around it, and you never just go, Oh no, we don't do that, or no, that's you know, that you know you know, you've got rules and policies in place, but they're always meant to be broken, and yeah, and you know, you work it out. Give a better mind, give a better experience, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

I mean, I've got like I I had respect for you guys, but now it's like just just understanding. You're learning a bit of the background. No, it's beautiful, man. And that's the whole point of it, because you know, I want to shed some light. Everyone thinks it's like you know, sunshine and rainbows, sunshine, rainbows, and roses that you guys just rock up here and open a cafe, and this is it. But no one knows the hard slog that you guys went through, right? Yeah, so I guess through that you you've you you've found you bonded this part, you bonded a friendship, first of all. I guess. Do you have any common common little things that you guys like together? A few common interests.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yeah, we like sneakers, we like food, like basketball. That's something that I like. We like uh rat beefs. What's the latest? Uh you know, can you can jacket? You know, got the jacket on this guy from Toronto. Uh it's fizzling out a bit, we'll see. Um, but yeah, we like a lot of the same things, and especially you know, just the way we work and operate, and uh you know, food and hospitality ethos aligns and think that's what's important.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

And then how'd you guys come about you know starting this partnership together? What what was it?

SPEAKER_02 11:50

I guess text messages back and forth. It was just I had already left. I'm sick of working here, I'm fucking burning. I had that. I had left the grounds. Um and Jesse was still there, he was sponsored at the grounds, so he wasn't needed to get his permanent residency. I was still friends and a few other um grounds boys as well. But me and Jesse just used to oh check out this burger, uh this place in LA, or check out this place, or check out these pancakes, or check out this, and it was eventually we had this you know message thread of all these places or all these foods that you know you couldn't really get in Sydney or Melbourne at the time. And eventually it was just like, why don't we open a place that serves all these things?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Right, all the things we like, put them into one venue. And then obviously, you guys you guys came up with with the idea. Did you guys come up with a brand together? Like what what was the go? Everything kind of happened organically.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

So it was menu first, yeah. So we had the ideas, and then Jesse um formulated that into a proper menu.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

So you engineered a menu.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Engineered a menu, yeah. Um, and then I this is like two and a half years before we opened, yeah. Then I kind of put that menu into a format so what it would read like. Yep. Um, then from there we got some branding done. Yeah, we got some brands. We had a name, we got branding done. It wasn't happy field. Um, but yeah, it was um off-white, yellow, yellows, it was all egg colours, egg colours basically, because uh the whole theme was kind of eggs and pancakes, eggs and sides and pancakes and brekkie burgers, so everything you know, butter and egg yolk and all that. So our colour theme was the four colours of an egg, basically. Yeah, yolk, egg white, eggshell, yeah, and burnt eggs, charcoal. Charcoal. Um this branding done. We had the name, we were searching for sites, we finally found this site. I saw it at the end of December 2020. We've seen the site before this. We've seen a few, we've seen a lot of sites before, but it just didn't really nothing aligned, nothing lined up. We had an offer on a site, but just fell through. Fell through for the best. For the best, you know, we probably would have ended up opening uh three months before COVID actually started. Whereas this everything happened for a reason, I guess. That's right. So when we found the site, I saw it at the end of December 2019. Jesse was in Toronto. I sent him a bunch of pictures. He's like, Looks sick. Yeah, as soon as he got back, we basically saw it again the next the second day he was back. Still liked it. All right, let's put an offer together. Anyway, that took three months. But once we once we decided we were gonna be here, we basically chucked out the other name. Yep. Uh well, my wife, we pulled up and she's like, You should call it Happyfield. And I'm like, No, it's just straight away as we're getting out of the car just across the road there. She's like, You have to call it Happyfield, and we're like, nah, too happy, not gonna happen, too jolly. She came up with the name, she came up with the name, like within within half a second. Wow. So we hated it. Um, because you know, there's other cafes out there that have filled in the name, yeah, and we're very like, you know, if they're doing it, yeah. We don't want to do it, we don't want part of it. Yeah, um, so we had a list of 50 names, narrowed it down, narrowed it down to 50, basically. Uh showed a bunch of people, and either people your wife at the time. Yeah, yeah, I guess yeah, we're married. Um, people, so she was like hammering us, trust me, happy field. We're like, oh no, I don't think so. Whoever we showed, they're like, Oh yeah, happy field, or they'd be like anything but happy field. Yeah, so it always came up, but it was always popping off the list compared to everything else. So I came around, and then I was kind of working, I was like, Oh, happy field, Haberfield, it's basically the same, like there's only three letters difference. Like, think what we could do with the words, yeah. Just like, yeah, but it's not like it's not edgy, it's not rough enough, it's too happy. Yeah, um, and then eventually he a few things popped out at him happy this, happy that. And we're like, he's like, I think it's happy field. So once we picked the name, then it was like we already had the yellow, yeah, and yellow's the happiest car. So then it was just like, let's ramp it up a bit. Yeah, how much yellow can we squeeze into the venue without making it look yeah, yeah. So she came up with the name, but she didn't want us to paint the ceilings yellow. Okay, and I won that argument, and then we finally painted painted them ourselves, and she was like, Okay, it looks like I get it now.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

So now you guys have really um like for guys that don't come from a branding background or never opened a venue yourselves before. Not for ourselves, before you opened a few for other people, yeah, yeah. But I'm saying not for yourselves, like it's it's created a concept to create a concept on your first venue, yeah. Um, and nail it without going to any branding specialist, without no designer, yeah. You guys literally just nailed it together, just came together, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

We didn't know what it was gonna look like. Like the amount of time my wife was like, Can't you just pay someone to design it in 3D so you don't do it wrong? Yeah, and we're like, we didn't have five grand to spend or ten grand to spend on on that on renders and stuff, yeah. So we didn't know what it was gonna look like until three days before we had because yeah, everything came together step like you know, in the last two weeks, or what happens. So I was like, you know, finished all the walls and the ceilings ourselves, the light fittings, light fittings, floor had to get done, and then the furniture got put in. We're like, ooh, okay. It looks good, yeah. It's starting to look like a baby. Yeah, like our mood boards were alive, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

That's amazing, and then uh, you know, you look around the place, you've got your little touches, you've got your little figurines, you've got you know, little signs of character that you guys have put in, and that's what's made the place feel, in my opinion, uh a happy place. It feels like a home, you know. You walk into someone's place, and it's someone's space, as per se, you know, you're getting welcomed into someone's space. So, you know, it's been it's been now two four years. Almost four years. We're in our fourth year.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

October, yeah, we're in our fourth year.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

So October will be four years trading. Wow, and along the along the journey, you guys have obviously had some ups and downs, I guess. Learn learnings, lots of ups, yeah, a few downs. What's the biggest financial fuck up? Oof.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

You uh you actually sent us this. We'd looked at the questions for about six seconds and then we're like other things to do. That was the one question we actually looked at each other and said couldn't think of anything. Wow. In in three and a half years, which we were like, that's pretty cool. And we're like, hopefully it's not to come. Yeah, knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood. Yeah, I like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Everything would be minimal, man.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah, yeah, it's like might might have wasted a money money on the you know, the odd item or the odd merchandise or whatever. And something we got we didn't need, yeah, but there's been nothing major. Nothing major.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, and what do you put that down to?

SPEAKER_02 18:26

I think having a limited budget to open, so we had like a set number that we didn't have uh a loan or anything, so no investor, no investor. So we were like, we have to open this menu venue for this amount of money. So everything was every single thing we spent money on, we had like a spreadsheet that if you printed it out, it would have been the size of this table, yeah. Or you know, one one or two meters long because it had that many columns. So everything was itemized. Every time something was looking like it was going to be more expensive than we thought it was, then we had to either not get it, um get it cheaper somehow, or get money, take something else out. So it was things we wanted that we couldn't get, or things we had to sacrifice, and and um and yeah, just had to stick to stick to the budget.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah, and uh what what do you put the uh the because you guys I you know I I see a lot of partnerships in business and you guys have a very strong bond and a strong partnership. What do you think the key success to that is?

SPEAKER_01 19:26

That's a good question. We reckon, Jess, we reckon the keys to our success.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I think um successful part, not to your personal success. No, I think it's successful partners.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

I think the fact that we had worked together, so you know, a lot of friends or family members or cousins might open businesses together. We're never actually but they've never worked together, they've been best friends, or you know, they've they've known each other or they have don't know each other, or someone's financially invested and someone's emotionally invested. You know, we had worked with each other, we'd uh you know, being in the in the weeds, they call it in hospitality. So we knew how each other acted in hospital in hospital and in business in service call it in service. In service. We knew how each other we each other were. So that was that's a big one. That's massive.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, because when you help when you when you like, if nobody understands this or people that have never been in hospitality, when you're in the shits and you know that you can turn around or you can look forward, if you're a chef and you look over the past and you've got someone on the other side that's backing you up, yeah, you're fucking sweet, you know? It gives you that breath of fresh air, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Right. I think that's all works as well. Like I'm in the kitchen, Chris is in the front, we're not stepping on each other's toes. Complimentary skill set, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

So you have a set you have a sense of autonomy between the two of you. Yeah, don't step on each other's toes, and then you know, having a 50-50 partnership is works for us. A lot of a lot of people were like, you know, has to be at least one of you has to have at least 51. You know, how has to have the final say? How's it how are you gonna have the final say and we're like if I need one percent to get a final say, well then that's not a very good partnership, is it? So 50-50 works because everything kind of you know benefits or or every everything advantages. You win together, you lose together. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

And um and how do you combat as a partnership? How do you combat? Let's just say you don't like a decision one of you made doesn't happen very often. Why is that?

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Well, how's that same wavelength? Yeah, yeah, like same brain, it's one it's one it's one brain. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. It's actually uh not a cough out. It's like we barely we barely have disagreements at the very start. It would have been like which logo should we use for the Instagram picture? Yeah, and it was like, oh, you should do the HF. It's like oh, what about the pancake mascot? All right, let's flip a coin. That's like that's that's as big as the disagreements have been. And then and then if it flips and whichever way it goes, it's I think we're and we're both neither of us are very stubborn. I don't know, but maybe our partners watch this and they go, Well, yeah, but in terms of like like we're just very easy going. So if it's like You know, Jesse's come up with a dish, and I go, Oh, maybe you should just change this one thing. Yeah. He might go, Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Or he might go, oh no. But then I won't, I won't push. You won't push back. Or he won't push back, and it's just like, you know, okay, cool. Move on. Fine. You know, we don't need a bigger problem. There's bigger problems than like, you know, which how we're gonna do the butter.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

So if if you know somebody just walked up right here and they're saying, hey, I'm looking to get into a partnership with one of my friends that I've been in service with, just like you guys, what's one piece of advice you'd give them?

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Just put everything on paper. Just work out, you know, what all the different possibilities that can happen. Worst case scenario, best case scenario, and then uh how you're gonna handle those things. So if financially it all goes to shit, what what are we how are we working this out? Yeah, you know, um, yeah, just get it on paper.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

No you're in and know you're out.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Wow, that's amazing. And then like you guys have obviously opened, you've built a successful team because for you to run this sort of institution, I call it an instant. Look, it's probably probably it's getting we like the word. I like the word. You need a couple more years, boys. Yeah, that's fine. You know, you know who calls it, you know. Um the guy that owns butter. Oh, yeah, Julian Julian. Julian, yeah. He said it in one of in one of our videos.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

He said it to me in person, but I can't remember exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

It's the exact numbers, but it sticks to me that it says um you know, through to like yeah, one video of this, three years of that. It's not the best one, 10 years of that and 10 years of your institution, yeah. And and I I always like refer back to that because I'm like, that's fucking stuck with me. And he's he's he's done it right and he's produced a culture. So, but for you to for you to grow this brand um and the space, you've obviously had to grow a strong team. And we walked in here, and it midweek you've got like seven people front of house, you've probably got another four back of hours. A little bit more, it could be a lot more. This is no, this was like today at the end of service at 2 30.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

I've seen like how many people do you have on one shift? On a weekday, we'll have five in the about seven or eight at the front, yep, and then five or six at the back, and then on the weekend we have about fourteen out the front, yep, eight at the back, eight at the back.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

You don't feel it. Yeah, I actually don't feel that.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Everyone's keeping busy and they're not just piling together. Not piling together. That's my Dalton House background. It's like if you too many people are but part uh piled together, someone would walk past and what is this? Fucking bus stop? Yeah, like spread out, spread out, yeah. No, 100%. What is this?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

McDonald's is I swear to you, I don't I don't I don't feel that many people serving. And what's been your like how how do you retain because I've seen like I come in here for years, I've seen the same faces. Yeah, so how do you retain that staff? How do you retain your staff?

SPEAKER_02 24:54

You just gotta put them at the top of your priority list, take care of them. Literally, I don't know the exact words of our mission statement, but it's like look after our people who look after our guests, yeah, who create you know memorable experiences. So if your main focus is your PL or your main focus is customers always right, customers always right, well then you're probably not gonna retain your staff. Don't get me wrong, we're always it's hospitality, we're always recruiting, and you know, yeah if a customer doesn't come for a few months, they'll come in and say, Oh, you got a few new faces, yeah. But we've we're three and a half years in and we've still got a handful of day oneers or people that have been here since the first few months, and that doesn't happen too often, but they have to be at the top of your list, yeah, like number one, and then everything else will try to find a place.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

And how have you found uh you know their their personal feedback on things? Like, do you listen to your staff? How do you train your staff? What do you do? Do you get because I on your stories every day you're giving them new food to taste, like you know, which is pretty which is pretty cool. Like you know, you're running a uh and I look at that and I'm going, that's smart because you actually get them to taste the food, you get them to understand, understand the palate, you're getting them to be able to sell that product at the end of the day. People look at it and go, Oh my god, they're you know, they're just giving out free food to their staff all day. It's like no, bro, they're actually training their people on their product.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah, I think it's all kind of the healthy balance. The happy way, the happy way, healthy balance.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

We're all very, we're all very like-minded. Yes. I feel like with like the staff, like you have like Diogo and Lisa pretty much taking care of everything, and it's like they think the way we think, so it's like they'll train the staff the way we work with.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

That's also because we've worked with them previously. The happy field is you know, yeah, since we opened even more so when we first opened because it was COVID and everyone, you know, was good. Good time to be hiring, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Um, but we had a lot of people that we had worked with for five years, ten years, prior, three years prior, and now we've worked with them for another three and a half, four years.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Um and worked them in in your own space where you've given them autonomy as well. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

And where we aim to hire people with experience. Yeah, yeah. So you know it's a busy place. It's a busy place, it's hard to come in completely raw to hospitality and learn on the fly because we're busy every day and we're open seven days a week. So a lot of uh most of our training is on the job. Um you're coming in with some type of skill set most of the time. Um, you know, minimum one, two, three years, depending on the position. None. I don't know if we have hired anyone with no experience, which is maybe I good and bad. Once you can kind of get away with it. End up going from Kitchen Ann to cook and whatnot. Um, front of house, I don't think I've hired anyone with no experience. Yeah. Because we were just busy from day one. You just you just pull on. It's it's a unsafe. Oh, they had some experience. It's like an unsafe. 17-year-old twins when we first opened, but they had a bit of experience already. Yeah, it's like an unsafe. It's unsafe for them.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

It's too busy. Yeah, it's not like they don't want to employ anybody that doesn't have experience, but it's just like if you come in here, you could hurt yourself, literally, yeah, if you don't know your surroundings or don't know what you're in. But uh Jesse, this one's for you in the kitchen. Um, I've found I've found in the market there's been a lack of mentorship in that space. Um, but you said something really interesting where you had you know that kitchen hand that you train up to become a cook. Yeah. What's one way that you find to you know to assist somebody on their journey, you know, and find their passion and hospitality or in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

I just think um well, first and foremost, I think you gotta be real with them and you have to say, like, listen, like what do you want? Like where you where are we going with this? You know what I mean? Because first of all, their priorities have to be in the right place, otherwise they're not gonna go from the heart, you know? And then with that, you just you gotta take your time, um, like I said, be honest with them, you kinda coach them a bit, show them show them the basics, you know what I mean? And then from there they can expand their knowledge and things like that. And I think just yeah, just being real with them, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Just like if the guy's like, hey man, this is a second job for me, I really don't care. It's not my career, like all wash dishes, see you later, you know. Yeah, but if someone's like, hey man, I actually want to become a chef and open like open my own cafe one day, yeah. You take that, you take that on and you're like, okay, let's do this.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

You know what's funny, interestingly enough, like you have obviously you have like chefs and people that work for us that are seasoned chefs, but you have people like they just come in off the road and it's like they um they buy into Happy Field. Yeah, you know what I mean? They be feel like they're a part of the family, part of the team, and they just want to do whatever they can to like help out. And when you get people like that, it's like they'll just do whatever, you know what I mean? They'll work their asses off for you.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

I think that happens organically through the hiring process as well. Because if if you're hiring someone and they seem excited about your venue, well then you get excited about hiring them, and it's like a you know, yeah, you gotta buy in.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Like Ben, for example, that works with me, the guy that runs all my media, this lovely face here, you know. I wouldn't be able to do any of this without him. He Ben and I went to school together.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

There you go. See you.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

And uh I've seen Ben's work over the years, and I was always a fanboy of his. I was like, fuck bro, your work is like I I need you somewhere in my life, I don't know where. And then I approached Ben a couple times, and then when I came up with the idea of the dojo, he flaked me before, and then when I came up with the idea of the dojo, he's like, Are you really gonna do this? And I was like, Yeah, bro, he goes, Okay. Then sort of our conversation disappeared. I went working on it. I was like, Great, I don't need him right now, it's okay. Then I was like, Ben, I need to start some filming. Ben became unavailable. I said, Fuck this. I tried finding people around Sydney, couldn't find anybody. So I picked up and I went overseas and I filmed what I need to film overseas. I filmed it, but I wasn't happy with them editing it. So I came back and I said, Okay, Ben, let me prove this to you, bro. I've filmed all this, this is what I've done. Can you edit it? And he's like, Fuck, you actually did it. So, you know, there's a lot of people that come into his life and been like, I want to do this, I want to do this, but never follow through. Yeah, and I needed to like sort of prove to him that, like, hey man, I'm invested in this, I want to do this.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

A lot of people have ideas, they have ideas, but they don't execute.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

And I guess like if you want someone to work with you, or you want to work with someone or work for someone, you need to show that you're bought in. You need to show that you're gonna carry your weight. And when Ben's seen that, hey, I carried my weight, I did this, he's gone and done that, he started his Instagram, he's pushed it out. Yeah, fuck, I'm gonna go in because you know, and he literally resigned his job, resigned from his job, and then I uh the day I think it was like two days after he resigned, we were at a conference together, and then I get invited to go to Miami, and I'm like, Ben, you ready to go to Miami? He's like, he's like, fuck you, and and and that's where we're at, and that's where we're at right now, and it's like that's the thing, is you gotta you gotta buy in, you gotta be all in all in, all invested, and um that's where you get the best work because everyone's chipping in, everyone's doing the work. Yeah, it's not like you're doing um less work than Chris, and Chris is not doing less work than the kitchen hand, everyone's doing like their part, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

And that's why like three and a half years the team still is so bought in because we're still here full-time, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. On the floor, one of you are always here, yeah, yeah. But I think it took like a year and a half for us because we used to be closed Mondays, so we just used to work Tuesday to Sunday, and even Monday. Monday would be the fixer day. We'd end up here anyway, fixing something or trying to put it in the middle of the thing. We're just opening the doors we're prepping anyway. Yeah, yeah. So it took us a long time to get to a stage where we're like, let's open the seventh day and go from working every day to working, trying to work five days a week, and that that was you know, having the team in the right place and people buying in and Diorgo and Lisa and um Suchef at the at the time. So it gave us the confidence to open seven days and and try work five days rather than working six and a half days every week.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Wow. Well, that's that's great. Like the fact that you went out to your team and like made a team decision. Like you went out to your peers and you said, Hey guys, I potentially want to open the seventh day and you guys on board.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Actually, that was our biggest disagreement. That it was that took the lot he wanted open six and I wanted open seven.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Originally, yes, yeah, out the gate, yeah, out the gate, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

So we used to just you know casually go back and forth about it. He won, and then after the we've opened on a Friday, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we got pumped, and then we'll close the Monday. And I was like, Thank god. Thank god, thank god we find that. We needed that one day, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

It's very important, like you know. I always say this when you open, like you start with hours. If you guys go like if anybody opens a venue and you go, I'm gonna do seven days and I'm gonna do French. Never want to subtract to 10 p.m. Yeah, you can't subtract because you lose that customer for life, yeah, and you lose all the people around them, yeah, right. So if you're gonna open a venue, what you need to do is be real with yourself, understand your team, and actually work out, hey, this is my capacity now. And it's okay to be short change, you want to be overflowing to the point where you go, fuck, let me open up that next day. Yeah, and that's where you'll find the foetition because then you'll find the people for it. You're not struggling to try stuff at it because if you close that day, you know, well, I've like I've seen some cafes everywhere. Oh, yeah, happens everywhere, and I know like some cafes, like and I'm not gonna mention them, but they've reached out to me for support, and it's like, bro, it's so hard to help you if you're serving coffee and you're not open on like if you're your Google hours out on, right? It's like yeah, it's like somebody rocks up and like no no fucking no one's there. It's like, but you coffee, you you oh my barista didn't turn off today. What you can't use that as an excuse, you lose a community, yeah. Yeah, wow. So well that there you go. We've digged out the disagreement. There was something, no one's ever perfect.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

No, no, no, it all worked out, yeah. We got it right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Wow. And then, like, what's what's on the cards for you guys coming up?

SPEAKER_02 35:09

No, yeah. It's like for us, it was get the store open, yeah. And it was do we rent, do we do upstairs? Because we've got we've got the upstairs space. Um, do we do dinners? Do we do dinners? Yeah, and then this room came available after a while. Like the first year and a half or two years went so quick because of COVID, right? Yeah, so it was like four square meter rule, two square meter rule, lockdown, one and a half meter spacing. That's that's C word we don't like to say it in this room, man. Lockdown, uh passport checking, like passport checking, uh staff getting eight stars having close contact, isolate for 14 days, shutting for a week because of you know, everyone's got COVID or close contact. So the first year and a half, two years that flew. There was we weren't looking to do anything. Then this room came available, and we're like, this could be a much better decision. What was this anyway? It was an antique store, okay store. So we're like, while it's available, could be a better option than doing upstairs because we use upstairs and you know, storage stuff, space, and what and whatnot. And the staircase is very narrow. So we're like, maybe we go horizontal instead of vertical. Then we got this space, took a few months to negotiate, got the keys, then it took over a year to get canceled. Council, NOS Council.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Gotta love them.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Yeah, so you know, the room was bleeding us money. You're paying rent, yeah. Not even the rent, just all the uh ordering stuff, heritage report, traffic report, architect report, garbage report, like all these reports, and then redoing reports. It's a 30 square meter room, but um so that was you know, all the what would that cost you? Uh let's just say the what we spent on reports and dead rent was what we thought we'd spend to renovate the room, right? So basically we spent double than what we thought we're gonna spend. Okay, so if we did that the first time around, we wouldn't never would have even got the shop over. Yeah, because it was. Um, this one cost us dark. By the by the time we were like got the approval, so it took 13 months to get approval. We were like, this one better won't be this fucking room. This fucking room, like it was so over it. We thought that was that would have been the biggest financial mistake, yeah, right? But then we opened it, uh we opened it at the start of school holidays. Yeah, um uh so July, basically July 1 last year, we opened it, and the first week it was school holidays, and was like, okay, that's our busiest week ever. Yeah, then second week was school holidays again, beat the first week. Then we were school holidays was over, and we're like, okay, this is gonna be the true test. And then it was like, you know, crazy committee to pre-happy room. And then it was like, all right, let's get through a month, let's get through a quarter, let's get through six months. And it was just like, all right, yeah, how could we why didn't we open this room sooner? Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it worked out well. And like, if we're getting to the nitty-gritty of it, we knew it would increase revenue, we knew it would uh take down our wait times, so that was like the main thing was to try.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

And the kitchen kept up with all this? Well, we made changes, yeah, yeah. I was super nervous.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Super nervous. So we had 13 months to make tweaks in the kitchen to try get it as ready as possible. So basically pulling out equipment that we didn't use and putting in more flat, yeah, putting more in more efficient efficiencies, and then um, you know, once we had had the room operating a while, it actually changed our profit margins, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

So because you've got literally you probably need to add a couple more people front of house, yeah, maybe one more in the kitchen, but we're capitalizing on the weekends and the busiest time.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

So, like on a weekday where you might be at 80% capacity most of the day, but then come lunchtime, you know, we'll turn you away customers just for like half an hour period because we're full and no one has time to wait on a weekday. So we'll turn you away customers then. So now on a weekday, you know, that that peak one or two hours, the whole venue's full, so we're capitalizing there. And then on the weekend we're we're doing 50% more dine-in covers than we were before. We're 50 we're 50% bigger to the seat, and we're doing 50% more. And you still run takeaway? Yeah, we still run well. That was the backup then. So the way I was like keeping Jesse calm, I was like, worst case scenario, we get the extra numbers dine in and we turn off Uber on the weekends. Okay, and now he does all of it. Takeaway, stitch up. It's just like stitch up. I think if you have a bigger kitchen, they pump, they just pump, and it's like it's crazy. It's actually crazy to think we thought we were at capacity before happy room, but we made you know some changes in the kitchen and put on a few extra pairs of hands in the right.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

And you put that as a you put that as a team effort, right? Everyone came together for that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, and and the way that you've engineered the menu, I've found that it really works um well. You can see that you know, you you there's diversity in it, but there's a lot of things that complement each other, so you're not like overstretching yourself trying to create stupid dishes, right? Yeah what's one way that you know you guys control your food cost?

SPEAKER_02 40:14

I don't touch it. What's okay?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

What's what's one key thing that controls your food cost that you think?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

I think just um, well, it helps that we're busy, I guess, first and foremost. Because if we were struggling, then might be a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

You don't want to be wasting stuff because you're sitting in the fridge too long.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Yeah, but um, I think I um I just keep it tight as possible. Like we really rarely ever overorder things. If we do, it's like things like buttermilk or like things we don't want to run out of, eggs and whatnot. But um, I think the menu is pretty well designed, it's it's fairly low cost in terms of menu items. Like our biggest seller is pancakes, flour, buttermilk, eggs. My eggs are going up. Hearts. Oh, yes, hearts.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

That's the expensive part, bro. The love the love, bro, the happiness.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

You have to charge right, yeah. And I think that's we're making that mistake for uh for the first couple weeks.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Didn't allow for GST.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

No, no, we we did we're too cheap. Since since we opened, we've had like five savings accounts. Yeah, and every week I try to do five transfers. Okay, I transfer GST out, transfer uh P A Y G out, transfer super out, I transfer company savings and company tax. Yeah, you do that eight week since we opened.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Do you have a bookkeeper to do that or you random? No, I do those.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

We have a bookkeeper that does the wages and and um bills. I do that, and then come end of quarter, I hit up the accountant on the first day of the new quarter. I'm like ready to do the bass. And then he sends it to me and I pay all those bills straight away. I don't want the money if it's not mine.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Yeah, 100%. Wow. Since day one, since day one, yeah. It's important as well because it's not your money, it's not it's not our money. I don't want it and I don't want to spend it.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

Yeah, yeah. I don't uh I don't even like want to. Because if it's in there, it's I don't want to look at it.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yeah, yeah, like yeah, I forgot what we're talking about. Yeah, that's okay. No, but that's no, that's really bro, guys. That it's really important because everyone forgets about that.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Yeah, some people I don't even know how, but some people go like two, three years without paying a GST bill. And you want to slap with a bill and you're like or you can't pay a tax bill or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

But if you take it out each week, it just it goes.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Yeah, I don't want I don't want that stress.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Apparently, according to my accountant, he's the second person out of all these clients to do his bass. We're the first.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Wow. But we're ready. You're ready.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Because you because if anything, we get it, we we we've over-transferred, yeah, yeah. And then it's like a little it's like, oh we've paid out, we've paid all these, and then there's this much left. Oh, but that goes back into the everyday or back into the savings.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Or back, or we need to give it for a bit of discovery trip, or we need to buy another waffle maker. Let's see. That's right. That's right. Well, and uh sort of sort of another big question for you guys is how do you keep the creativity alive in the venue?

SPEAKER_02 43:03

You just gotta be creative. Rhetorical question. No, it helps to have a system in place where every week he's doing two new dishes. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

So that's something that you guys have agreed on.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

It's just from well, from the start, we had the we had pasta of the week on the menu, yep, because we're in uh you know Little Italy, and that was like our homage, and we had uh Pepe's pasta across the road. So it's like get a fresh pasta every week and do something new. So we had the pasta of the week, then like a year in, yeah. I was like I don't even know how sandwiches. I don't even know. We're just like, should we do a sandwich of the week? And we're like, all right, now we're doing pasta of the week and sandwich of the week. Yeah, and then since we opened, it's been new menu every season. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

So every three months, that's like 10 new dishes. You you rotate it around, you clean them up.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

And then for me that does the socials, he's doing so much all the time, there's always content. He's got two new dishes every week. Yeah, there's there's free content where it's so it's not getting stale. At a minimum, you know, we're doing something with the of the week, something with the sandwich of the week. New menu day. It's like, you know, super bowl.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

And you and you manage your own you manage your own social media.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Yeah, we manage a lot. I think people think we're bigger than we are. We manage everything. No, like in terms of like they'll think like there's like you know there's a team of a hundred.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

No. Like a head office. Like a head office this is your head office right here. This is the head office. And how do you find uh how important is social media for your business?

SPEAKER_02 44:28

I think it's important, but I don't think it's everything. Everything it's like sometimes you you get caught up in it and you think it's everything but then you know you go a week without posting the customers are still showing up. Like sometimes you think oh if I don't post today it's going to be dead or if I don't post every day they're not going to come or if we shut over Christmas and I don't post during that period when we reopen people are going to forget about us. But it's it's you need a break it complements a business. It's not your business. Yeah some people it is but it's a cafe we're selling you know good food good coffee good service happy vibes happy food happy we're not selling social media happy food happy happy service happiest meal of the day yeah um but yeah it's important but it's not everything.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yep. So well that's that's that's interesting because a lot of people think it's everything you know I feel like you know you need to be present and you need to have and I think just the way that you guys do it on your don't get me wrong we're pretty we're active we try to be very well because it's it's it's natural it's organic like we're sitting here we're here something happens whip out the camera like some it's natural yeah no it's not like you don't need to go be paying like two three grand a week to somebody to manage your social media you guys got to learn how to do it on your end right yeah and if you do it organically and make it a part of your day to day just you know that and that's that's what people want.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

And maybe it won't be you know it might not be your forte if you're the owner but maybe there's a staff member that that you know someone's going to be good at it. And if you empower someone or you know there's going to be someone that can can get it done.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

What I notice with venues at your venue especially with your social media is that you show the people as well as the food. Yeah. And that's where I feel other venues lack. They get these big photographers in do this beautiful photo shoot but you don't see any faces behind anything. And people on Instagram people follow people. Yeah right they want to hear your voice they want to hear your opinion they want to feel like they're going on a journey with you. Yeah and when you're showing them like you're you're you're showing them the special yeah but you're showing them how you make it yeah you're showing them the people that make it the people that make it yeah the love that goes into the dish and I think that's we're having fun while we do it yeah but uh as you say that lately trending on I spend way too many hours on TikTok each night.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Not very active posting on it but I'm very active scrolling on it. But they've been talking about like go on Nike's Instagram you won't see a pair of sneakers. Go on Apple's Instagram you won't see a computer go on McDonald's Instagram you won't see burgers it's always what are they selling?

SPEAKER_00 47:09

What's the feeling they're selling Red Bull's the go product yeah they're the originator yeah exactly so you're not selling through social media you're not selling your product you're selling the experience yeah 100 150% man and I totally totally appreciate that and I think that if you guys keep following that ethos and that's what the market wants right now um definitely definitely if there's if there's one thing that you know one piece of advice you'd give to somebody who's you know there's a lot of people that look up to you too in the in in the hospital world in Australia and if anyone's overseas and does some research into Happyfield and you're looking to start up your own venue you're probably gonna look up to these guys as well. So if you were to give someone that wanted to get in the industry and open their own cafe a piece of advice what would it be make sure you're sure what you mean by sure what's that like no you want to know what you want to do this.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yeah like you got to invest everything have the right reasons to open if you're opening it to try to get rich yeah like you're in the wrong business good luck.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

Yeah um like thankfully for us we're twice or three times busier than we thought we'd ever get to yeah and it happened quick but it's a hard industry yeah you know everyone's closing down you can do everything right and still not succeed sure margins paper thin yeah all the costs are always going up people have less money to spend the government want their money government want their cut um they're like a dirty business partner they're like you know the guy that knocks on your door for protection money yes that's them bro tag it's like everything um yeah if you eliminate a few of those things then it would be a very lucrative um business but I think definitely have to have industry experience yeah passion passion for what you do like if you're just going oh let's let's open let's open a side truck or you know let's do potatoes let's open a smud truck or something but yeah you know you know some you okay some of them are probably doing it for the right reasons some of them are just you know following the trend or whatever whatever it is yeah I think from our perspective if you want a sustainable business this is just our perspective because this is how we did it. So I worked in hospital since I was 15 Jesse since he was 18 we paid our dues and we opened a venue. So from our perspective that's how you should do it. Other people's perspective you know it might be like business mindset take the leap just do it. You know if you fail you fail. Whereas like we couldn't afford to fail. Yeah so we needed a I wouldn't have opened the the a venue in general without Jesse or without a chef as a business partner. Yeah because I opened so many venues for other people and majority of them within a month or three months the head chef is gone either walked out not worked out and then what do you do? Back to the drawing board back to the drawing board hire a new chef to replicate that chef's or hire a new chef and change the menu and then let's see if that chef works out. So the fact that we're both skin in the game yeah I'm sure there was many Sunday services where maybe if Jesse wasn't he might have just been like fuck this like but he wouldn't have because that's not in his character but it happens yeah it gets busy yeah like and it gets hard and it's and Jesse you still pro predominate in the kitchen I'm still there yeah still you're still there you just show up what's your favorite section I'm on the pass always on the pass I'm on the pass. Yeah and then when you're not on the pass pants probably yeah yeah enjoy the pants like I said I was wash up poaching eggs up I was in the wash book as well wash up but that's good I just like to get involved you know yeah yeah yeah keep keep your keep your fingers on the pulse correct what about Chris do you get involved behind the machine uh I'm on the door okay on the door I can jump on the machine I can bang out some shots for five ten minutes as soon as I walk in the coffee area I'm like guys I don't do uh tea soy milk decaf single origin like I just just like I just want to bang out shots and pour some latte and froth the milk for me yeah um no mostly on the door yeah that's my domain and for you when you manage the door how do you find how do you deal with you know such like now you your wait times are up to like 20 minutes now I think 20 minutes for a table so they they creep up to an hour still on the weekends before we opened the happy room it was basically an hour and a half or more on Sundays which was very stressful to manage people's expectations um you know they might have um driven 45 minutes to get here and you're telling them it's over an hour and a half wait for a table that's fine um so that was like we have to open we have to get this extra space to take some pressure off and put on the kitchen. So now how do you how do you manage that hour weight and keep people happy it's all you've got to be transparent. Yeah you've got to be s selling the the good vibe and the and the happy vibe from the moment they step into your into your radius. You know if you're your personal space if they're walking up to you and being like ignored or you know greeted with like not much energy or they're standing at the please wait to be seated sign for one two three minutes and no one's acknowledged. One two look how he's talking so not 10 minutes one two three he's thinking of the minute no or the seconds the seconds um so like on the weekend there's someone at that door 95% of the time and if they're not at the door it's because they're taking a customer to the table and then they're I'm I'm pay like I'm running instead of the happy room running like back out that way I'm running through the room back to the front door and as I'm running from the happy room to the front door I'm dialing the next number because like you can't waste a second. If you waste a second on that door it like it's like a tidal wave on you because there'll be a line of people that you need to take names and numbers and explain what's going on. You know it's it's a 30 to 40 minute wait at the moment we'll take your name take number call you when it's ready but you've got tables that have left you've got to call tables you got to get through to them you've got to tell them it's an outside table do you want to grab that one or do you want to take it do you have like an automatic like texting service? So I was gonna do it but the way we do it works so well by calling someone instead of texting them you're getting instant feedback and response so if I text you and then what happens? Yeah you don't say I don't really know what's going on. I need to wait for you to respond or wait for you to pop up. If I call you and you don't answer I'll call you again pods no I'll just move on to the next person and if they call me back well then they're still in the queue I haven't crossed them out. Okay. Um and then I call someone and I I tell them uh the table's outside is that okay yeah oh we'd rather wait for inside no problem we'll call you again when it's ready yeah whereas if I text them and then they come and it's outside and then they don't want outside yeah so the calling gives us instant feedback and it's like an extra level of service. So it's like people are like oh you you'll text when the table's ready I'm like we'll call you and they're like oh you call us like yeah I'll call you yeah I'll call you and then we're like it doesn't always happen but it's like go for a walk go go shopping explore go explore explore Haberfield yeah it's been on my list for like three years to create a map of Haberfield and all the different um vendors um but yeah explore Haberfield we'll we'll call you when your table's ready yeah and that's what we do.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Wow that's beautiful man look I'm so happy I'm so happy to be in this space and be able to enjoy it and be around for this and see you guys grow as you know not only as a brand but as individuals in this in this hospitality space. I've been in it for for many years and I've seen you Chris grow into it and I'm like proud to proud to say I've been able to watch you guys and it's it's beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

So I continue to I will continue to support you guys wherever I can uh because you guys do it well and I think that you know if there's anyone that ever decides to come work at Happyfield well you need to buy into the dream buy into the dream buy into the dream be part of the team come be happy come enjoy it and if you guys have never tried happy field you like it was thinking of something else say it says our great staff member who's worked with us over 12 years be happy be happy field that's it's it'll get very that's it or a doo do if you do anyway um do uh doodo yeah doodoo okay nice doodoo that's like no it's edu and then do do do he's gonna love this doodoo okay no but uh no wish you guys the best of luck with any of your endeavours and know that hospital dojo is always here in your corner thank you we have like a like a yeah we have like a what happened to the sound effects you add them later is there uh you know lastly actually before uh you guys did a partnership with Peppy Sayer you guys got your own custom stickers on the fucking butter how'd you do that shout out to Dion from Single O yeah really yeah so we changed coffee suppliers halfway through our journey okay like after a year and a half or two years and uh uh we met uh Dion the owner from single O through once we were everyone was knocking on our doors since we opened but we were never serious about changing and we had this idea to do a custom sticker for ages and then eventually we met with Dion and he's like custom sticker I ring Peppy now jumped on the phone get these boys a custom sticker will you and you know six nine months later we we had a custom sticker it took took a while we had to twist their arm and get the design right and make sure you know they're a pretty um solid big brand they're a big solid brand had to make sure they were happy but yeah the the custom drippy custom drippy uh pepper peppy stick yeah yeah that's the butter that's the butter there it is on the front of the menu so yeah it goes hard to man like they've done a great job like for a for a small business that started out to get onto an international airline yeah and be the face of Australian butter yeah it goes hard he's done he's done well he's done well he's done well and I'm very proud you're very proud as an Australian when you see that stuff yeah yeah yeah and you guys make us proud as well so keep going keep going strong and thank you for joining the podcast thank you no problem thanks for having us yeah