I started working in fine dining type restaurants when first got to Australia, and while it was steady work I eventually got sick of that type of restaurant.
What actually interested me was the coffee scene in Melbourne, I made the switch and started working in cafes, it better suited my preferences, but I hated the bagels they were using.
So, I started making my own bagels for the cafes. The initial demand was there and people really liked the bagels but I was having challenges scaling up to meet the demand.
I went back to New York, New Jersey and San Francisco to learn the trade at scale. I came back to Melbourne, rented out a kitchen and started making larger batches of bagels to take to farmers markets.
At the farmers markets, people who owned cafes would try a bagel and ask me to supply their cafes. I figured there was enough demand for my bagels, I got a permanent kitchen to help supply cafes and keep doing farmers markets. The supply and farmers market business continued to grow until I figured it was time to expand into my own bagel shop, 5 & Dime.
There was all kinds of challenges with the shops, but now we have 2 of them and still have the supply bakery, it’s been an interesting journey.
I call it a New Jersey bagel, it’s basically a New York bagel but I think the New Jersey bagels are better.
Ritual was more focused about the office buildings above our cafe, I figured it was worth a try.
I initially didn’t want to do it, we were constantly approached by different aggregators and third parties, I was weary of another. I had just come off of Ubereats and Deliveroo and didn’t really want to do anything more with third parties. But, because Ritual was more focused about the office buildings above our cafe, I figured it was worth a try.
It’s been much easier to use and more successful than some of those other third parties.
Ritual did start off a bit slow, but then the Food Fest campaign started and we had unbelievable success, we even had to get extra staff to handle the numbers coming through.
When Food Fest ended, we were definitely much busier as a result and it has kind of continue to stay that way. Ritual has been a valuable partner in growing the business.
The feedback has been good, the staff has been happy, it’s simple and easy to use.
When people are picking up the order you don’t have these problems and I can make sure that the product is good every time.
It’s been easier than say Deliveroo and Ubereats, we always had issues with delivery because we had no control once the product leaves us. There’s this big space between making the product and having the customer get it and a lot can go wrong in that period.
When people are picking up the order you don’t have these problems and I can make sure that the product is good every time.
