Episode #37 is now Live!

Meet Alex Riviere

Alex was born in France and his passion for hospitality came at a young age watching his family of restraunteurs run hospitality venues. 

He moved to Australia at the age of 22 and worked in several well known restaurants around Bondi one of them being Sean’s Panorama. 

After spending several years in Australia, Alex and his partner Lulu  decided to move back to France to be closer to family. 

Two years later and with a new born baby they decided to move back to Australia. 

They loved the relaxed Blue Mountains lifestyle and knew it was the perfect place to raise their family.

Alex resumed work as a chef in Mount Tomah, and part of his job was making sourdough for the restaurant. This is where his obsession for baking started. 

He was learning from YouTube, and connecting with other bakers on Instagram to learn the art. 

With the support of his wife  it didn’t take long for him to quit his job as a chef and start baking full time. 

David Harris from Vesta allowed him to use his wood fire oven after the restaurant would close, which allowed him to start supplying several cafes and restaurant. 

He set up a Saturday morning stall at The Blue Mountains Food Co-op markets and that’s where he grew his reputation. 

He would prep all his sourdough from his house and then head to Vestas to bake his bread at night. 

He was starting to get tired of all the logistics of making his own bread from home and using another venue to bake his bread, so he decided to ask other cafe operators if they knew of anyone that was anyone willing to invest in helping him set up his own bakery. 

He was connected with Stefan and Rosi who were in awe of his bread vision and passion and decided to invest in him. 

Things progress very quickly and within several  months they opened their first bakery called Black Cockatoo. 

Broadsheet once were quoted as saying his bakery commanded similar queues to an Apple store on a new iPhone day.

With 2 stores and a wholesale business black cockatoo is as popular as ever selling nearly 4000 pastries a week. 

I was so inspired by Alex’s story, his business is built on pure passion, obsession and love for baking. Alex is 100% self taught in making bread and pastries.

He credits his wife Lulu for the Success he has had saying he would never been able to pursue his passion for baking if she didn’t support him.

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.

Episode #29 

Meet Jonathan Faro, owner of Society Pizzeria and Johnny Gios. 

Johnathon started his hospitality journey in catering at the age of 23 with Society Catering. With jobs all around Australia their mobile food business couldn't keep up with demand, Jonathan than opened Society Pizzeria on Bondi Road. 

It didn’t take long for that shop to reach capacity selling over a thousand pizzas a week. 

With his reputation of great service and food, it was meant to be a home run. As Johnathon describes it, he was over ambitious. Things didn’t go to plan, but instead of feeling sorry for himself he pulled himself out of the tough situation he was in and opened another shop during the hardest period of his life, that store was his second in bondi called Society Pizza Bar, and ended up being one of his best performing stores to date. 

He has since opened a new concept called Johnny Gios, a takeaway pizza restaurant that Johnathon describes as your neighbourhood pizza shop, he already has two Johnny Gios locations and plans to open all around Australia and internationally once the borders open.