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When it comes to customers, Ed Halmagyi, former Better Homes and Gardens chef, cookbook author, and owner of the Sydney-based Jewish bakery and bagelporium Avner’s, has a simple philosophy: “We value them as people long before we think of them as a customer.”
From the food they order to the service they receive, and all the bits in between, Ed always prioritises giving customers the best. “My thing is hospitality, very much before anything else.” Community is the heart of Avner’s and forms the foundation of his rules of service, which he shares with us here.
Care for your community
Giving is intrinsic to Ed, and generosity is written into the DNA of Avner’s. Ed recalls the story of an older woman that he noticed looked confused and disoriented outside Avner’s and how he sat her down and gave her a glass of water.
“She has no idea where she is. She knows where she has to get to because she’s got her address written on the outside of her purse. Because clearly, this has happened before,” he says.
Ed asked an employee to accompany the woman home to ensure she arrived safely. “That’s just what you would do. I mean, to me, there’s not a question about that. I want more of that in the world. And so partly, I guess success for me would be that more people are displaying more care and more investment in their community.”
Maeva Effoudou, manager at Avner’s, says that giving is an everyday part of Avner’s culture. “If someone’s interested in trying something, then we’ll just give it to them to try. If they purchase one thing, chances are they’re going to end up with two things in their bags. We don’t really count things like that. We give to make people happy at the end of the day.”
She adds, “That’s Ed’s approach to hospitality. It’s contagious.”
Hire for heart, not skills
Technical skills can be taught, but kindness can’t – that’s Ed’s hiring policy.
I don’t hire people who already have the skill set. That’s irrelevant. I can teach you to bake. That’s not a problem. I cannot teach you to be lovely.”
Ed Halmagyi → Owner
The result? A team that loves what they do, and it shows in how they work and engage with customers and each other. “These people [Ed’s team] are amazingly lovely, just absolutely charming people. And that’s the first and most important thing.”
Hospitality first, always
Being based in Surry Hills, a Sydney suburb dense with cafes and restaurants, means that customers are spoilt for choice, yet many keep returning to Avner’s.
“You have to be selling something else, which for us is hospitality,” says Ed. “It is our greatest point of difference from all our competitors. We do it really, really, really well.”
Parents with young children and dog owners, many of whom live in or around Surry Hills, make up a large portion of Avner’s regulars. Ed knows this and ensures they are well catered for. Dogs are given the off-cuts from the house-made pastrami. Children are engaged in conversation, treated to marshmallows, and made to feel included when they visit the bakery. On weekends, chalk is put out for the kids to decorate the footpath.
Staff snap photos of beloved local dogs, and the Polaroids are pinned up inside Avner’s near the point-of-sale, where children are encouraged to vote, with star stickers, for their favourites. Avner’s also started a program called Random Acts of Doughnut, where they intentionally bake more sufganiyot (Israeli doughnuts) than they anticipate selling, and gift them to customers throughout the day.
“So why come here? Well, we’ve got a range of reasons, but it makes them [customers] feel validated, which is a very lovely feeling to have,” says Ed.
“And that goes back to the whole being hospitable thing right from the start, which is, if you put a pin on the front door of this property, and you draw a 250-metre circle, there are 77 places to get food or drink. 77. Within two blocks.”
Offer the best, no less
Ed is proud of the food offered at Avner’s, all of which is made in-house and to the highest standards. “We make everything in-house, literally everything.
“From pickles to sauerkraut; we make our own pastrami, lox, condiments, mustards. Everything is made on that front bench in the kitchen, which is kind of cool.”
The single biggest-selling item on the menu at Avner’s is the lox bagel, made with house-cured, hand-sliced lox that Ed learnt to make at a three-star Michelin restaurant.
“There’s not a better bagel in Sydney, and I would argue there’s not a better bagel in Australia,” says Ed.
Invest to elevate your offering
Customer service and community are of the utmost importance to Ed, who values the ease-of-use and support provided through using the Square Point of Sale system.
“What I care about is having something that allows me to serve customers quickly, that works accurately, and that gives me the reporting data that I want, and, much more importantly, that I’m buying into an ecosystem where problems can be solved when I need help.”
Ed also appreciates the insights Square can provide him in fostering community and repeat custom. “One of the nice things about the Square system is that it does tell you the distinction between new and returning customers,” he says.
“That’s what we’re looking to build, because that is the measure. If you come out and say, ‘I want to build community’, how do you measure that? That is the single best measure we have. So that fundamentally matters to us.”
