What a year 1998 was for WA’s hospitality industry.
What a year 1998 was for WA’s hospitality industry.
In August of that year, frustrated chef David Coomer took a punt on a little restaurant in Shenton Park after seriously considering returning to Sydney. After many years of working in the west he felt there wasn’t a restaurant in Perth he would be happy to work at.
Another chef, Neal Jackson, was also frustrated. He couldn’t find work in Perth after leaving the state’s south west with a reputation for cooking great food.
But with too many years under his belt he found himself unattractive to potential employers.
Food was all he knew, so he leased an old Italian restaurant in Highgate and converted it into a modern fine dining establishment called Jackson’s Restaurant, which opened in October 1998.
In the same month, former accountant turned restaurateur Nic Trimboli opened a small, intimate and dimly lit restaurant called Balthazar in the old Luis’ Restaurant bunker after strolling past one day and noticing a ‘to let’ sign on the ground floor of the Lawson building.
It too was a punt.
Nine years later and all three men are sitting back and enjoying the fruits of their labour. Their restaurants are held in high regard by their peers, who have voted Jackson’s Restaurant, Balthazar and Star Anise as WA’s best three restaurants.
Mr Jackson’s restaurant was a clear stand-out and accounted for about 25 per cent of the 49 votes cast from WA Business News’ industry survey, which was sent to 125 restaurateus and chefs across WA.
Also recording multiple votes in the WA Business News survey was fine dining French institution The Loose Box, French bistro Must Winebar, The Essex Restaurant in Fremantle and Ismail Tosun’s Eminem Restaurant in Nedlands.
The recipe for success has been different for each restaurateur. Yet there are also some striking similarities.
Messrs Jackson, Coomer and Trimboli say they don’t cut costs to make a quick buck. They stick to their vision and attract talented staff to help them build their business.
They are also patient and recognise restaurants are not instant money spinners. Mr Coomer spent the first few years riddled with anxiety and unsure if he could pay the bills one week to the next.
He thinks it takes at least five years of hard work and dedication before a restaurant becomes a strong, stable and profitable enterprise.
Mr Trimboli said it took at least 12 months to reach break even point, while Mr Jackson spent more than 10 years running his own businesses and not really getting anywhere before finding profit with Jackson’s.
There is also a lesson to be learnt about renting versus owning property during Perth’s property boom.
Mr Jackson originally leased his premises, but was lucky not to have any rent increases during his tenure.
He regularly showed interest in acquiring the property and was offered the freehold last year when the landlords decided to sell-up.
He reckons it will make a good nest egg for he and his wife and eventually, when he retires, he can lease the premises to someone young and eager to make a go of the restaurant caper.
Mr Trimboli negotiated to buy the strata to his premises rather than lease it and thought that if the restaurant didn’t work he’d convert the premises into an apartment.
Mr Coomer, on the other hand, is somewhat kicking himself that he didn’t buy his building many years ago, when he said he could have bought it for about $350,000. The building recently sold for $2.2 million and his rent has since increased by 20 per cent.
With three years left to run on his lease Mr Coomer is looking for a new location with an expectation that his lease will not be renewed. As he scouts for a new location he will deal with the cost increase, but not by cutting costs in the kitchen.
The same food focus exists with Messrs Jackson and Trimboli, who have learnt that patience is essential and that the moment costs are cut all the hard work is undone.
