“ My father started the business in the late 70’s and it was the first hot bread shop on the North Coast. This was in the time when people were buying their bread from corner stores and supermarkets that were supplied by big manufacturers.
I was in Melbourne having a crack at the corporate scene doing commercial lending and I came up here for holidays, I grew up here on the North Coast. I was sitting at The Beach Cafe in Byron with a friend and I was saying, ’How good is it here on the North Coast, my father always says there’s a job for me here!’ and this friend said ‘well why don’t you think about it.’ It was like a ‘moment’. I thought well I could be living in Melbourne catching a tram and wearing a suit everyday for the rest of my life or I could have a crack at the bakery so 26 years later here I am.
Back then on a good Friday we would serve over 150 customers. That was when Lismore was very much the regional centre. Casino probably didn’t have a supermarket then and people from Ballina would come shopping here but now they can shop where they live but despite that the business is still running, we have 27 staff over a 7 day week.
Being connected to Melbourne for a short time to me set the benchmark for this style of business so I’ve always wanted to provide the Lismore community with something they could be fairly proud of considering some of the regional towns you go through and what bakeries are on offer. We’ve always tried to be the best we can and we had an Italian baker here probably 10 years ago now who got us onto the artisan breads and some patisserie things as well.
After I moved here I got to know Jeff Pilati and guys like Mort. Mort was a boner at the abattoirs who has a bullet through his leg. If you had of told me I’d be hanging out with these guys, you know, I’d had a pretty insular existence, boarding school then a residential college at uni, working in a bank with commercial lending so you know everyones sort of in a mould. There’s no mould in Lismore. It took me a fair while to adjust but that’s what great about Lismore, the diversity and it’s still a good business town. It’s not like the coastal towns where you have to rely on the next lot of holidays to have your busy spell. It’s constant here week in and week out. You are being judged every day so that scrutiny keeps you on your toes. You take nothing for granted.
I have great long term staff which makes it easier to have a life. You know Donna has been here nearly as long as I have. She started here as a 15 year old. Over the years I’ve tried to recruit people with perhaps better skills, like the lead pastry chef at Brasserie Bread in Sydney and various others with good credentials and it took me time to realise that you need to make the best of the people you have, you know the people that have grown up in Lismore are happy to be in Lismore, you can train them, send them away to a course and they stay with you. The loyalty is there and the progressions we’ve made are all with local staff.
In terms of raising a family where would you rather be, and work. You know life’s frantic enough without being on that treadmill in the city. There’s more emphasis on balance when you live in an area like this.
I saw Tony Pilati (Cappellos) on your page. He’s a great front man Tony, so is Jeff and Dave De Nardi’s the same. Must be something about Italian background. I’ve always taken the approach..well I haven’t got that charisma so it just has to be a good business.”