Table of contents
Aussies have been blessed with a lot of international cuisine – we know what to expect from an Italian restaurant, or a Japanese ramen bar. But Belgian cuisine? It’s not the most well known. Martin Rehak and his wife want to change that with their restaurant Bridges MD Belgian Dining, but they’re finding the Gold Coast crowd to be a little unsure and inconsistent.
Joel Valvasori has had plenty of hospitality experience, and whilst his restaurant Lulu La Delizia has a focus on Friuli cuisine, he’s adapted his menu to be a bit broader for the Perth crowd. In this episode, he gives a few tips for Martin on how to approach his menu for the Aussie palette.
Subscribe to Coolroom Confessional
Episode Transcript
Melissa Leong:
We are proudly supported by American Express. Did you know that American Express card members can earn points when they tap on Square, and that Square sellers pay one low rate to accept the card? If you’re a Square seller, you can let your customers know that your business supports American Express payments with complimentary signage and supplies at amexpop.com/square.
Intro:
Yeah. I remember talking to the team that night. I cried. I cried in front of them.
What I would not do, and write this down, put it in highlight, “Don’t do it.”
We made so many mistakes that we were always going to make. Don’t let Lorenzo measure the store. Messina should have been broke twice. He’d sent me to the wall twice, right?
And you have to try it. You have to just roll the dice. I think you have to take those risks.
Melissa Leong:
This is Coolroom Confessional, a podcast by Square. In this series, we’re offering hospo business owners a place to confess their problems. With some expert help, we’re going to try and solve them. I’m Melissa Leong. I’ve been a writer, culinary critic and TV judge. Today I’m having a pint with Martin Rehak, who co-owns Bridges Belgian Dining with his wife, head chef Delphine.
They’re struggling to manage staff and food waste in a boom and bust tourism area. Let’s hear their story. When Martin Rehak arrived on the Gold Coast from the Czech Republic, he had a suitcase in one hand and a surfboard in the other. It was 2013.
Martin Rehak:
So originally, the plan was to come in here, stay maybe for two years and just enjoy the life and save money and then keep traveling.
Melissa Leong:
That is not what happened. Martin got swept into the Queensland hospitality scene and was soon managing successful restaurants, and when he met his Belgian colleague, Delphine, his life changed again. They got married, had children. Then they had an idea.
Martin Rehak:
I was slowly burning out and I felt quite helpless and we started thinking, “Let’s do our own place.”
Melissa Leong:
They opened their own hospo venue.
Martin Rehak:
We always believed that if you starting the business, bring something new, what no one’s got.
Melissa Leong:
And Bridges Belgian Dining was born. That was 2020. You can probably guess what happened next.
Martin Rehak:
We opened and two days after they shut us down, that came the lockdown and that was nasty.
Melissa Leong:
When state and international borders fully reopened, so did Bridges Belgian Dining, but business has been boom and bust since. The restaurant’s traffic comes from tourists and planning staff and supplies is a challenge.
Martin Rehak:
And you will say, “Oh, look, more or less, same amount of bookings. I think it will be busy as last week,” and it’s not.
Melissa Leong:
Martin and Delphine now run the show virtually alone, sometimes pulling 20-hour days.
Martin Rehak:
And you do it again and you do it again, and then you get used to it and you say, “We can do it. We don’t need anybody.”
Melissa Leong:
The food is fresh, the reviews are stellar, but how do they get consistent traffic through the door? Welcome to the show, Martin. It’s great to meet you.
Martin Rehak:
Nice to meet you too.
Melissa Leong:
So we’ve just heard a little bit about Bridges. So you run front of house while your wife is the chef. Is that right?
Martin Rehak:
Yes. Yes.
Melissa Leong:
Do you want to talk about that relationship dynamic in life and in business?
Martin Rehak:
It is good. It tells you a lot about yourself because at the same time it is not just me and her at the restaurant. We also having three kids, and we both working in hospitality all our lives, and I think for our children it is just good to see how hard you got to work. It is just good. So it’s life.
Melissa Leong:
I think it’s really a wonderful example to be setting for your kids. You guys, between the two of you running the restaurant front of house and back of house, you pull extraordinary hours. What takes up most of your time outside of service?
Martin Rehak:
The thing in general is the incompetence of the other people who you rely on, which is suppliers, all the people who you need. This is very draining because if you have something, let’s say you have a fully booked restaurant for the evening from five o’clock onwards and it’s midday and you need to work with the ingredients, you need to have them ready and you don’t have them, then you need to go and get them. Otherwise, you’ve got nothing to sell.
Melissa Leong:
Martin is frustrated by issues with suppliers including inconsistent and late deliveries. Ben Lipschitz at FoodByUs has tips to streamline orders and minimize mistakes.
Ben Lipschitz:
Typically, what we find is every venue operator knows this, but they’ve not often had, I think, a system. Try and get three suppliers that you might work with. Try and get three sets of quotes, try and run a tender, try and communicate to them what’s important, not just for price, but to meet the needs of what’s going to make you a good operator.
Melissa Leong:
It sounds like you really describe your restaurant as your fourth child.
Martin Rehak:
It is.
Melissa Leong:
It also sounds like a lot of experience that many, many people in hospitality can relate to. Case in point, someone that I would love to introduce you to that I think can hopefully give you some tips but also maybe commiserate with a few of the things that you’re going through. Joel Valvasori from Lulu La Delizia in Subiaco in Perth. Welcome.
Joel Valvasori:
How are you going?
Melissa Leong:
Fantastic. Man of few words, but very effective words. We’ve known each other for quite some time. You’ve seen and done it all, not just in Western Australia, but also in Victoria as well.
Joel Valvasori:
Yeah, yeah. Spent a fair bit of time in both culinary scenes now. Just hearing you talk about suppliers and supply issues and stuff is something that I can relate to. It’s something that I had to adapt to moving to Perth and realizing that you can’t get two seafood deliveries every day in Perth. You get one, you’re lucky if it’s in your restaurant by your lunch service.
You have to adapt to that and you need to start ordering ahead of where you need to be. The markets are so much less reliable here than they were in a big city on the East Coast. Things that you may want to use, you might not be able to use. You might see some WA seafood on a menu in Sydney and go-
Melissa Leong:
Oh, how nice.
Joel Valvasori:
Yeah. “Why have I never seen this before?” And that’s just the reality of living in a small city.
Melissa Leong:
It’s funny to refer to Perth or the Gold Coast as being a regional space, but outside of the interests of say, Melbourne and Sydney, what are some other challenges that you face as a restaurateur?
Joel Valvasori:
Everyone’s going through the same thing at the moment. You mentioned the last 18 months has been particularly difficult. I hear from people in Melbourne and stuff that their patterns of trade sort of echo ours. Perth’s not a regional area, but it’s regional compared to the rest of Australia because we’re closer to the moon. Things like weather, weather can have a massive effect on the way people dine in Perth and I’m guessing Gold Coast echoes that as well.
Martin Rehak:
Absolutely.
Joel Valvasori:
In Perth, when it’s the first week of nice warm weather coming out of winter, you go, “Oh, we’ve got this beautiful alfresco and everyone will come out and want to sit outside and dine,” but they’ve all decided to go to the beach.
Melissa Leong:
Martin, you’ve mentioned your location on the Gold Coast is a bit of a challenge for your business. How so?
Martin Rehak:
I have to say, especially in the suburb where we are, and you will go and you will see Virgin dining, Virgin restaurant. I would say the majority of the people who go, “Oh, I don’t know what it is, but I know what is fish and chips.” And I’ll go, “I don’t know what is hamburger. I know what is smashed avocado with poached eggs,” and I’ll go and I get it. Then you have, as Joel mentioned, the weather, massive impact on what it is like. We had this winter. I wouldn’t even call it winter on Gold Coast, but then suddenly it warm up for two weeks and honestly, it was like you have these pack of bears sleeping during the winter.
They don’t know why they don’t eat, and then it’s, “Winter’s over and let’s go out to eat.” Coming from just week after when you really on a low numbers, you trying to just reduce any wastage and then suddenly it hits you. You can have a little forecast, what’s coming, so you can get ready for that, but not always. Sometimes it just looks still quiet and then you get smashed in last minute bookings or lots of walk-ins. But it got cold and rainy and everything stops again and it was the weather. It was just the weather.
Melissa Leong:
Martin and his wife, chef Delphine, are on the tools solo to avoid paying staff in quiet periods. Colin Birney, Square’s head of business development recommends owners break down staff costs and sales numbers by the hour, not just the day.
Colin Birney:
There’s a great example of a sake bar in Darlinghurst in Sydney called Amuro. They’re using time of day sales to help roster staff and to understand what menu items they should keep. So it’s a great example for business owners that want to leverage the information and the data that they’re getting to make really well-informed business decisions.
Melissa Leong:
I would love for you to explain to people who aren’t familiar with Belgian cuisine, what is so special about your cuisine?
Martin Rehak:
What is the special the cuisine? The major flag of the cuisine is the mussels, the steamed mussels, especially if we go inland and we go off the coast, it is lots of slow-cooked. We do slow-cooked meatballs. It’s lots of work with the seafood in different way, gravy. Chips are massive. Especially with the chips, it is funny to see if we say chips, such a simple thing, but you do a little bit of work with it and you can get something very unique.
Melissa Leong:
You had me at, “Best chips on the coast.” That sounds like a strapline ready to go. Joel, do you have any questions about Martin’s menu?
Joel Valvasori:
I guess the things that I see straight away, of course, you specialize in mussels. That’s quite clear. You had about 12 items on your menu, so it is quite short. From that, you had four mussels and two kinds of meatballs, so that’s taken up half your menu.
Martin Rehak:
I like to have fresh products and a good quality products and have less than just have 60 pages of beef, pork, poultry, hamburgers, pasta, pizza, everything, but nothing’s fresh and nothing’s done well.
Joel Valvasori:
I think you have, what, about five, six desserts in there as well?
Martin Rehak:
Yes, I think there is six desserts. There’s a couple of appetizers, the croquettes, which they’re taking big part as well.
Joel Valvasori:
So looking at a menu, and I know what my percentages are roughly on sales of desserts for starters. Desserts don’t make up a very high percentage of your actual sales. You’ll probably find that it’s very low, as in 4% kind of realm of your total sales. Dedicating so much menu space and effort in the kitchen to producing desserts is probably not the best use of your time, but also takes away from space on the menu to offer other things from the Belgian cuisine that might be of interest to customers.
Most customers don’t come in for dessert. At Lulu’s here, we’ve only ever had two desserts, and they’ve basically been the same almost since we opened with, I think, one change in there, which we then reverted back after my mum complained that I took her favorite dessert off. So we’ve got two desserts, we’ve got one little pastry and we’ve got a cheese and that’s it.
Melissa Leong:
Stay with us as we dig deep into some of the issues Martin is trying to tackle. This podcast is thanks to Square. Hospitality has enough on their plate. Square builds business tools that help hospo businesses like yours run smoothly. It’s more than just payments. From table layouts to a digital ticket system for your kitchen, it’s all integrated and it all talks to each other because service still matters.
Find out more at square.com/my/service. Joel and Martin, you’ve both led very storied careers in hospitality that doesn’t come without mistakes. For our avid listening audience, do you care to share about something that is a hard-earned lesson, something that you wouldn’t do again?
Joel Valvasori:
What we’re seeing at the moment is something that I’ve always been against. We’re seeing a lot at the moment of restaurants making sacrifices on what they do. I’m seeing a lot of $30 pasta and a glass of wine deals and stuff to try and attract people into their business. You’re attracting people for discounted food and drinks to try and make your business busier. That requires more bums on seats and more staff to service the bums on seats. Staff is not a cheap thing at the moment.
Martin Rehak:
Yeah, it would be.
Joel Valvasori:
So trying to get more people in at a discounted rate is just counterintuitive for business.
Martin Rehak:
Agree.
Joel Valvasori:
Serving discounted food to put bums on seats, it’s a slippery slope to the end.
Melissa Leong:
Bridges Belgian Dining is offering something quite specific, which can be a draw card and a challenge when it comes to getting bums on seats. Hannah Green from Etta Dining has built flexibility into her business model with an ever-evolving menu
Hannah Green:
Because it is a business that has been built so organically over those years and gotten better and better and better as the years go on, there is a trust in people with the things that we do. But now it’s like, “Oh, yep, there’s another chef. Cool, great. Can’t wait. It’ll be great.”
Because consistency is key in this industry. It’s a restaurant that’s been built on service and a human connection and interaction with our people that when we put someone into the kitchen now, there is an expectation and a trust in people that it will be just as good, if not better.
Melissa Leong:
Thinking about both of your menus, they both celebrate regional specificity, which is something, as a food writer, I love to see. Joel, I wanted to ask you, your menu is hyper-focused on Friulian cuisine. That’s where you’re from. Do you find that there are any parts of your cuisine that don’t translate to your audience?
Joel Valvasori:
Yeah, 100%, 100%. And so as much as our heart and soul of what we do is from the northeast of Italy and Friulian stuff, we need to look at the cuisine of not only the region, but also where we are in situ here in WA. And the climate here is completely different to Friuli so we need to play to our audience. Back when I was a younger chef that was trying to be a lot more, “This is the way it is.”
Melissa Leong:
That was trying to tell them.
Joel Valvasori:
But now that I’m older and I have more the customer in mind rather than myself and my own ego, I recognize that we need to find a way to deliver it to the Australian palate. I also think that with seasonal food, it’s not just about what grows in a season, it’s about how you feel like eating in a season. So adaptability in your menu is a big one.
Melissa Leong:
Martin, on your menu and in the realms of your cuisine, are you thinking about how you can adapt your dishes to suit your customer base?
Martin Rehak:
That’s one of the factors is why we not adding some of the dishes on a menu. And in general, we’re trying to have… As I would say, for me, honestly, the Gold Coast weather, I think, in general, it’s warm. When it’s really hot, we will go with the Provencal sauce, which is very light. There is a lot of sweetness from the tomato, so it is refreshing. You using the right product in good quality, fresh, I think you taste it.
Melissa Leong:
Martin wants to stay true to tradition, but Chef Joel Valvasori recommends the venue finds a middle ground between traditional cuisine and customer favorites.
Martin Rehak:
Occasionally, like Joel mentioned that someone tells you, “Oh, it’s not really Italian,” you’ll always have these people.
Melissa Leong:
Don’t we love those people?
Martin Rehak:
Yeah. Well, they’re there and I’m always saying you can make happy everybody.
Joel Valvasori:
“Oh, that pasta is not from Friuli.” It’s like, “Yeah, it’s not. If we only did the pastas from Friuli then we’d have three of them and they’d be dumplings.”
Melissa Leong:
Martin is clearly passionate about serving Belgian beer and food at its traditional best. Award-winning pastry chef, Gareth Whitton, says that’s a key component for success in any venue.
Gareth Whitton:
If you can really nail that ethos and you can really purify your offering right now, being reactionary is very detrimental because I think not only is the market overly saturated, but that saturated market is struggling.
Melissa Leong:
Joel, being that you’re not a brand new restaurant, you’re very well-known, very well-established, do you find marketing a business that is not brand new more challenging?
Joel Valvasori:
We’re eight years now. I think people stopped talking about us about three years ago, so we just have to keep trying to find ways to obviously stay relevant. New media outlets are, “The 25 best tiramisus in Perth.” Are you serious? There’s 25 best tiramisus in Perth? And that’s what’s happening. Social media just doesn’t work the way that it used to. I think we have 25,000 people on our Lulu’s social media.
I think once we boosted a post and then realized that every post after that performed worse because they knew that we would pay for a post, we’ve just found that social media has become a pay-to-play situation. You also realize that people are coming to you four days later going, “I’m here for the clam special,” and you’re like, “No, that was actually three days ago.”
How it’s been fed to people doesn’t work the same as what it used to. It used to be I post something now, everyone that follows me sees it in real time. And now it’s ads and ads and ads and how to lose weight, lose your dad bod, erectile dysfunction, all of that sort of stuff.
Melissa Leong:
That’s an interesting algorithm you’ve got going on there, Joel.
Joel Valvasori:
I think it just goes, “You are a 45-year-old man, you’re probably going to be like this. Yeah, here you go.”
Melissa Leong:
Getting eyeballs on your business can be a huge boost, but how do you do it? When it comes to Australia’s food media outlets, Joel says it’s a major challenge to attract press to a venue that’s been opened for more than six months. Here’s Broadsheet Australia’s editor, Nick Connellan.
Nick Connellan:
People say, “Oh, why do you only ever write about anything that’s new? Why is it always, ‘New this, new that?'” And it’s like, “Well, for the same reason the ABC doesn’t report on election results from two years ago because people want what’s current and what’s relevant.” But in saying that, we also do feel a responsibility to keep heroing the people who have been around for a while and who are doing things really well. So we find sneaky little tactics for resurfacing particular people’s names and businesses that we think are doing a really good job.
Melissa Leong:
Speaking of people, speaking about you, Martin, you’ve clearly done something well because your online reviews are really highly regarded. You have a loyal customer base of people who think of what you do as being really special.
Martin Rehak:
No. Or someone came and said, “Why you have all these fancy beers and you don’t have any SuperDry?”
Melissa Leong:
Wrong bar, mate. Wrong bar.
Martin Rehak:
What is fancy beer for you? How do you know that they are fancy? They’re not fancy. There are fancy beers, but you don’t know which ones are fancy. But we cannot start adapting in a way that we will probably sell more hamburgers than Marcel’s, so let’s start doing hamburgers. No, no, no. I’m not going to do that.
Melissa Leong:
So what you’re looking at doing is really expanding your offering.
Martin Rehak:
We planning to do few events. We did couple of beer tastings. They had a really good response.
Melissa Leong:
Do you think about things like rebranding or relaunching as viable options for you and your restaurant?
Martin Rehak:
Yes. Yes, we do. There is a few things where I’m planning to add it on, online selling the beers because we having beers and we bring in the beers. What no one’s got, you order on the website, “Oh, this is the beer.” You will order the beer just for the pickup by you walk in. It’s just another way how you can make a noise and just show, “Oh, look, we’re here.”
Melissa Leong:
Michael Bascetta has owned and run three award-winning restaurants and has been coaching other venue owners in how to adjust to the changing landscape.
Michael Bascetta:
I think if you talk from a location perspective, something like the CBD, seeing how that week has shifted. So I think if you’re a lunchtime business in the city that relied on that city crowd, it’s a bit of a slog now. But then if you had a good night trade, now it’s interesting because Thursday nights are kind of the new Friday and Friday still happens anyway because people are coming into the city and Saturday. So it works okay, but I think that the biggest shift is just how people are spending money.
Martin Rehak:
How would you compare the clientele in Melbourne and clientele in Perth?
Joel Valvasori:
Yeah. So we moved to Perth because I’m originally from Perth. And did it suit the cuisine that I was cooking back in Melbourne? Not so much. It was coming out of some sort of 1970s culinary slumber, and there was a sense of a breath of fresh air coming into the dining scene at the time.
So I was lucky to come at a time where I could be a big part of that. I think it’s quite saturated now as far as restaurants go, so there’s always businesses falling over and there’s always new ones starting. If you ever were to move to Perth, you’d have to be prepared to approach things very differently to if you were to go to Melbourne.
Melissa Leong:
Martin has asked whether a move to Melbourne might boost his venue’s customers. It’s possible, but a move to any new city comes with new challenges and you’ll likely take some of the old ones with you. In this case, rent could skyrocket if Bridges moved into a same size venue in Melbourne.
Martin Rehak:
Would you go back to Melbourne or are you happy where you are?
Joel Valvasori:
No, I don’t have any intention. I have been asked and I have had opportunities to take Lulu’s interstate. I’m quite comfortable-
Martin Rehak:
Where you are.
Joel Valvasori:
… here, both in business and in life. I’m of the belief that opening a restaurant 500 meters down the road is too far.
Martin Rehak:
It sounds good. You’re happy where you are, you’re happy as it goes, of course, no matter what’s the challenges but…
Joel Valvasori:
And obviously, like everyone else, we went through COVID in that time. We’re going through what’s happening at the moment. There is just constantly something that you are fighting against.
Martin Rehak:
Something. Yeah.
Melissa Leong:
And no matter where your business is located, that’s going to be a challenge. And so there is a question of: is it better the devil that you know?
Joel Valvasori:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. You’ve just got to keep working hard for it.
Melissa Leong:
Make the most of what you have.
Joel Valvasori:
I don’t know how long you’ve got left on your lease, but how can we maximize the amount of exposure that we have? Not just social media, but obviously just street frontages is really important. Imagine driving past your place and having eight wine barrels out from the stores around them and people drinking steins of beer and that sort of stuff in the Gold Coast sun.
It doesn’t have to be Hahn SuperDry, but a really accessible lager-esque kind of Belgian beer out of big tall glasses and stuff, eating beautiful chips and mussels and stuff sounds really bloody attractive to me.
Martin Rehak:
Wish everyone would see the same.
Melissa Leong:
Yeah, I think hot chips and cold beer, that is an evergreen proposition and that’s something that you have on your side because that’s the core of your business.
Martin Rehak:
Like Joel said, how it looks from the street, it’s the first thing like, “Oh, do I want a beer?” If you’re walking past the place, what doesn’t look good, it’s dirty, no music, fryer smell coming out of the door, you’re not going to go.
Melissa Leong:
To recap, Joel’s advice is to reduce the number of desserts on a restaurant’s menu in favor of higher margin meals. Make your venue work before thinking about moving and consider the local climate, culture and of course customers when you’re serving regional dishes. Thank you so much, Martin and Joel.
Martin Rehak:
Thank you. Thank you.
Joel Valvasori:
No worries. Thanks for having me.
Melissa Leong:
Coming up next on Coolroom Confessional.
Donato Toce:
We’ve tried so many things over the years and they’ve been spectacular failures. They’re amazing for about 15 minutes and everyone’s talking about it and it’s great, and then everyone just goes back to ordering a scoop of gelato and that’s it.
Melissa Leong:
We are proudly supported by American Express. Whether you’re baking bread at sunrise or serving drinks into the night, American Express has your back. As a Square seller, you pay one low rate to accept all major cards, including American Express, and you can order complimentary signage to attract more customers directly to your door at amexpop.com/square.
This podcast is thanks to Square. Hospitality has enough on their plate. Square builds business tools that help hospo businesses like yours run smoothly. It’s more than just payments. From table layouts to a digital ticket system for your kitchen, it’s all integrated and it all talks to each other because service still matters. Find out more at square.com/my/service.
