Episode #30 

Meet Mathew Abi - Arrage

Mathew started his hospitality journey to make a bit of money with no intention to ever open his own shop. By the time he was 25 he was running some of Sydney’s best venues. Working his way up in the Merivale Group he became the licensee for the establishment, after working there for 18 months, he decided to move to Melbourne to work with the Sand Hill Road Group, one of Melbourne’s best pub operators. He realised after a conversation with one of the owners that there was no reason why he couldn’t open his own venue. 

He decided to move back to Sydney and start looking and planning for his own site. 

Although he was ready to open a shop he wasn’t sure what concept he wanted to open, but this didn’t stop him from signing a lease for a beautiful space in Rhodes in 2015. 

After doing some research he found that there wasn’t as many high quality cafes in Sydney like there was in Melbourne, he saw there was a gap in the market, and 6 months later he opened Left of Fields. 

Mathew talks about the struggles of the leasing process, the doubts, the fear of people not coming to his cafe, and the reason why he decided to sell the cafe 6 years later. 

Mathew is the first guest we have had on our podcast that is no longer in the industry so it was quite interesting to hear his take on the hospitality industry since he sold his cafe.