December 1, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode, Candy Berger, CEO of Lox in a Box, talks through the journey from the early vision to the challenges that shaped the business. She explains how she navigated setbacks, built resilience and scaled what started as a small takeaway bagel shop in Bondi into three thriving locations in Coogee, Bondi and Marrickville, along with a retail line, baked goods and a fast-growing brand.
A sharp and honest look at building a modern hospitality business and what it takes to keep growing.
Check out the Lox in a Box website here: https://www.loxinabox.com.au/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a better if you say first time.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, easy, Kenny Burge're welcome to the mentor
thank you so much for having me. All right, you're
the CEO. I guess founded too of locks in a box. No,
(00:25):
I know what a box is, but what's locks?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Locks is what the traditional word was lax. It's a
Yiddish word for salmon phillip or salmon belly. And then
when the word locks lax was taken over to America,
people couldn't say lax properly, so the Americans got lax.
So that's how we got locks.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Okay, then we got it locks in Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, And it's it's interesting for me anyway when you
say Yiddish, that's a sort of a slang version of Hebrew.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, well it's sort of not really, but it is.
It's not really Hebrew.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
It was a language that the Jewish people spoke in
the back, back a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah. Yeah, and in Yiddish is it's Jewish people still
speak with Yiddish a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I think, No, not not necessarily, but we all, I
think use Yiddish words like schmitz, kutzpah, there's so schlep
perfect one. We've just got it. We've got a back
coming out that says massive like words schlepper cross it
as it's a huge bag.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Schlepper exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
That's schleb means schlepping around. The joint means you're sort
of dragging your feet doing your best.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Absolutely schlepping anything around.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Really, it's it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I love all those Yiddish words, like I think a
feeler on the roof when I think of Yiddish words.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, ndred percent that's it, and we all use them now,
not just Jewish people.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's universal exactly. It's probably you probably can look it up.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You probably can pick up the Oxford Dictionary or something
like that and Yiddish words.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Then locks probably is in there, locks and box. So
what is your business? What is it about? What is
locks in a box?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Sure? Locks in a box. It actually came as a
happy accident, to be fairly honest with you. We were
working pre COVID from home. I had a catering company
and we got in trouble, which you know seems to
be like a reoccurring story in my life with the council.
So we can get into that later. But council knocked
on our door and said, you can't work from home anymore,
(02:24):
go and find a store.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
This is pre COVID.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, we got we got a knock on the door.
I was working catering.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
From my home for preparing stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
For private clients. So my background is that it was
a private chef. And then I ended up catering for
my clients for bigger functions, birthdays, anniversaries, New Year's, all
that kind of stuff. But I didn't have a preparation kitchen,
so I was working from home, going direct from my
house to the client's house.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
With the cool food parton, with all the food, yeah,
with all the food. Yes, I was preparing food for
your house.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I don't Yeah, I didn't know there was anything wrong
with it either, until you need a whole bunch of
different life senses and permissions, and there's all these regulations
that when you do things from home, even if it
is private to a customer or client's house, you still
need to be in an approved facility to do that.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Shut you down.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
They shut us down. And yeah, so we ended up
going to at a site in Bondai. I was looking
at it standing there, thought to myself, I've always wanted
Jewish deli and I was going to call it Lillian
Fred's after my grandparents. But then my wife stood on
the grass outside and said, wouldn't it be great people
can grab their locks in the box and sit on
the grass and have their bagel. And I said, what
did you just say? And she said they're locks in
(03:34):
a box. And I was like, oh my god, light
bulb moment, and I was like, that's the business name,
that's the concept, that's what we're doing here. We're going
to do locks in a box. So we were standing
at seventeen Warners Avenue where it was yeah, it was
a garage before that, and they had just redeveloped it
and there was this huge site two hundred square meters
(03:55):
and the landlord was like, are you interested in it?
And I i'med in art and I just thought to myself,
way too big for us. I can't do this. But
I loved it, but it wasn't right. So I turned
my back and as I turned my back to the site,
I saw a fullase sign in the shop window at
ninety six Glenare Avenue, which is which was our first door.
(04:16):
And when my wife said locks in a box, all
of the things started going in my brain about this
is a concept in itself. Maybe it is a takeaway business.
Maybe we're not ready to have a whole, sit down
deli thing in a two hundred square meter I've been
working from home, never paid a rent before, never read
a lease before. You know, I was flying under the radar.
(04:36):
So at that point I turned my back and I
saw that site, and I saw the number, and we
walked away and I said, the site's not right for us,
but I'm going to call this number here. And that
was the start of locks in a Box.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So it's just so I just get the location right.
So Glenair Revenue. Is it on the corner beyond cur
Lewis Street, so Claus and Glenaire.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah, so you know where the roundabout is, bottom of
Glennair and Blair Streets, So that is Glenaire and then
the other side is Warners Avenue.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Right, So we were.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
On the roundabout in before it was.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Developed because you had a butcher on one side.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You go to direct across the road from butcher.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, and because there's a few there's a few food
outlets in that building. There are, And it just so
happens that the person who owns that building.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I think his name is Burger.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Too, yes, not related, and his wife is Candy Berger
as well. So we get I get their invoices or
tax receipts from Venroy and I thought, oh, I didn't
go shopping today or Mercedes Benz rings me and says
your car's ready to be picked up side a mini
creeper at the time, and I was like, oh, yeah, sure,
I'll go pick up that BMW, no worries. So we
have a joke now because I know them quite well.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
A lot of property.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, they're in a lot of property. So that site
was the big site that we weren't ready for. So
we're currently fast forward six years. We're actually now in
that site as of three weeks ago. But for the
five years we were across directly across the road in
the tiny little hole in the wall. Yeah, just behind
the tree behind the park.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, I know exactly the place. Yeah, and I
haven't been in there, but I should have gone in there.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So just explain to me what you what.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
You guys were selling, So not just locks, not just
yeah a box with smoked salmon and like a bagel
or something.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, Well to be honest, the whole business was not
supposed to be locks in a Box. When we got
in trouble with counsel. We had a catering company, so
we didn't have any intention to do a locks in
a box per se. But when we had to think
about the paying a rent or you know, having staff,
we were purely doing functions on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
(06:38):
and that was sort of enough for me and my
wife to.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Sort of no, this was from.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Home, right, So we thought to ourselves illegally, yeah, allegedly,
allegedly exactly, there we go. But yeah, we thought to ourselves,
if we're going to open a retail, if we have
to move out of home, we have to go into
a retail space. We can't purely survive off of three
days a week of catering if it rained or something happens,
somebody counseled. So we thought to ourselves, we need to
have something to sort of.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Like subsidize smooth things out, exactly, yeah, because otherwise.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Exactly, So we thought to ourselves, well, why don't we
do a retail concept of this deli? That was always
my dream back you know, from before I was a.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Private chef in New York, sow Delhi.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Not New York, because I our background is Polish and
my grandparents had great grandparents had a deli in the
UK in like the nineteen hundreds. So our style of
Jewish deli there was from Eastern Europe, not necessarily from.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
The New York soul.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
No, it was the opposite.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So you were not to me that pastramis and all
those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
We do have aastamis, but that's I think it's not
just a New York thing. I think that's something that
has been around for many, many years inside the Jewish communities.
So we have pastrami on our menu and we've got
a few things there are definitely like you know, bits
and pieces that are in I spent about ten years
in America growing up, so I've been I've been around.
(08:04):
I did ten years London, ten years America and now yeah,
the last fifteen years here in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So can you get my mouth warning, But can you
explain to me the appeal and maybe to our audience
as well, of the it's not Jewish food, it's it's
sort of European food, especially from the places like Poland
(08:31):
and Hungry and all those sorts of places and became
after the early part of the twentieth century, like nineteen
oh five, right through in the big immigration wave when
it's the United States and they're coming from everywhere in
Europe everywhere, and then again probably after World War one
and two. What is the peal of those foods that
(08:51):
came from those places like Poland and Hungry and probably
Russia to some extent and some of the other places.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And what is that food look like.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think it's it's the comfort the comfort food, you know.
So the food itself, most of you know, bagels and
pastroami sandwiches and chicken MutS and ball soups were always
around family occasions.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Not just for Jewish people. That no, not on anybody.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah yeah, I mean for anybody. But it was. My
understanding is like my grandparents, you know, were from Poland,
and then when they moved over to the UK, they
brought those recipes with them to the UK, And so
for me, it's all my family sort of ever known
in terms of my other side of the family's German.
So there's some influences of German bits and pieces throughout
(09:39):
locks and a box as well, but that food has
just always been there. It's what they grew up eating
that they didn't have the luxury of, you know, all
these different cultural backgrounds. People in Poland made Polish food,
you know, and so I think like when everybody immigrated,
that was the food, you know, my grandparents made, and
then that was became the food that my parents made,
(10:01):
and now you know, it's the food that I'm making.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
So yeah, but it's because I actually think of it
as you know, I'm not Jewish. I'm not from either
one of those places. From European but not that, but
I actually quite I like that type of food, and
I look at it as comfort food, like you know,
a big thick piece of dark bread with pastrami and.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Some some sort of pickle on there.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
It's a mustard.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
It's a mustard. It makes my mouth water just think
about it. And by the way, you can't get it.
I'm my office in the city and you can't get
in the city anywhere. Probably if I was going to
get it, I'll probably have to go to Bondi. I
think some or some sort of Russian deli. There's a
few of those around Bondi. You don't see Polish delis
that much these days, but there's a few Russian ones.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
If I was, if I.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Want to eat that sort of food, which now you're
telling me about it, I'm trying to think where I
could buy it.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Obviously your your joint.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
But how is it that Australians know about that stuff?
I mean, I can't even know. I can't even tell
you how I know about that sort of stuffing. I'm
green and Irish, so I've been in New York and
I've had some stuff in New York, but I didn't
get that sense of taste from there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
How is it US Australians not better?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Or is it because I was sort of grew most
of up I spent most of my life in these suburbs.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Probably a lot of influence from the Eastern Suburbs. Definitely.
I would say that there's a huge Jewish community that
lives in the Eastern Suburbs that you know, again background
and heritage, and that our culture has been eating this
food forever. There's not that many places. I think when
we opened Locks about six years ago, we're one of
the few people sort of doing this type of food.
(11:35):
I think Australians are like now, it's really common. I
think it's been a bit of a boom in the
last like six years. I think COVID did that. The
sandwich game or the bagel game has definitely blown up
in the last six years, is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Absolutely, Well, how do you mean a sandwich game? The
games people are out looking for sandwiches and bagels, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I think COVID really changed the way people were eating
because as like, essentially a sandwich could be one of
those you don't go, you don't need to go and
sit down at a cafe and be served by somebody,
take it away, quick takeaway food, and that's you know,
in the last six years, there are just sandwich shops everywhere.
There's heaps of bagel shops. There's lots of people, you know,
(12:15):
trying to make something work with these takeaway sandwich businesses.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Do you think Australians too, because in other industries I've
seen this, do you think Australians to post COVID were
have been during that period and post that have been
searching for exotic stuff. So I don't mean like, you know,
like weird exotic stuff, but exotic foods, you know, like
I want to I want to just blow my life
(12:42):
up a little bit, just you light up a bit.
I want something that's a bit unusual. You like puffrom
getting takeaway. There's convenience, but I want to have something
that I don't normally get, Like I'm not going to
buy it at this one of those shops in them
also you center where there's you know, everyone's sort of
selling the same stuff. Do you think Australians are trying
to light their lives up a little bit? Do you
think we it's exotic?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I don't, to be honest, I don't to you, but.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Like a bagel, you mean, yeah, see I see bagels
Like a bagel is so not exotic to mix. I've
been eating it since probably the first thing that I
could have eaten, you know, solid food. My parents probably
put a bagel in my hand or something like that.
I can imagine. I don't see them as exotic. I
think it's now it's I think people are just wanting
(13:24):
ease with what they're doing. Nobody's really exploring too much.
I mean there's yeah, I think there's just like every
single time you open Instagram or you go on a
public like a publication, it's just like new sandwich shop
popping up, new sandwich shop popping up. I feel like
there's actually think people are being quite boring in a
way that everybody's just following each other and not trying
(13:46):
anything exotic in you, which I think it's time. I
think I'm ready to see not just another sandwich shot
pop up online. So yeah, it's not going to be me.
I'm not going in that direction, So don't look at
me for that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
But you're going to stick to what you know.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
And they keep coming back to that as a as
a business owner, a staple, as staple, as a as
a something that hasn't changed forever, like I don't want
to change. It's like, why don't fix what's that's not broken?
So it's just honoring that and making sure that you're
doing it well with intention and care and love into
the product. And to me, like, we're not going exotic
(14:25):
where we're really trying to stick to what we know
and go back like it's it's essentially my roots and
so we are we're.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
How important is because that's that's an important point you
make when it comes to business anyway. How important do
you think in your success has been the authenticity of
the story of why you're doing it, like, you know
what it means to you, What this means to you
because the how and sort of builds authenticity of course,
but how important has it been to keep you going?
(14:54):
Because you know you're going to go hard? Time is
going to have ship that's happening that you didn't expect.
It's going to come at you from every direction. You
can have lean days, lean weeks. These days, you can't
pick any trend the trends tell me about it. It really
changed that you think, well, Christmas time should be busy,
for example, and you're not going to get busy and
get busy in January or November and.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Then it rains and it's not supposed to rain where.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
There's all the shop.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
How important is that story, your story about what is
it meaningful to you? How does it carry you through
the bad times?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah? To be honest, like, I'm sure a lot of
people would say that it's everything so then, but I
genuinely believe that Locks wouldn't be where it is without
the authenticity piece because I didn't even realize it. You know,
my grand my grandma handed me an original sandwich bag
from my great grandfather's deli on the day that we
opened Bondai, and she didn't tell me prior. In all
(15:47):
the talking about things and all the planning, she never
once mentioned to me that, oh, you know, your great
grandfather did this and your great auntie and uncle worked
in this business. She just it just wasn't something that
she shared with me. So when I look back at
it now, like you know, growing up in a home
like that welcomed everybody, and that there was my family
(16:07):
was always generous with food. My dad was always cooking
my you know, we would I would come home and
there'll be people around my table that I didn't even know.
Like those type of things have sort of like carried
me through to where I am today. And we opened
this bagel business in food and I didn't even know
that this was what my grand my roots. It didn't
even it wasn't even shared with me. It was literally,
(16:28):
I genuinely believe that it was. How else do you
explain it? How else do you explain that I've moved
from three different continents without speaking to my grandparents about this,
without my mum even mentioning anything. That I ended up
six years ago opening a deli in Bondai, and it
was it was out of nowhere. We had to think fast.
We had a catering company. I didn't want to I
(16:49):
didn't want to rely on that three days week. So
I was like, Okay, I'm going to put a Jewish
deli at the front of this shop. We're going to
do pick up and take. Like the pick up window was.
There was order at one window, pick up at the
other window. No one was going to come in and
no one was going to come out. And I thought
to myself, I love bagels. Everybody loves bagels. Let's do this.
And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I
(17:10):
had to just think that. You know, as we do
in business, you have to think fast, you have to pivot,
you have to muster something up to try and make
something work. And we had this deli that from day one,
thank you know, thank you to our community and our
our customers, was well received. And then only after that
I found out through my wife's parents that her grandparents
(17:32):
had a deli in the UK, a non Jewish deli,
so pork and all, you know, sausages and all those
kind of things. But within twenty minutes of each other's drive.
At the same period of time, my wife's grandparents great
grandparents had a deli and my great grandparents had a deli,
and neither of us knew about it until we had
already had locks and box open and running, and it
was just seemed like to them like they didn't need
(17:53):
to share it with us. It was almost like they
thought we knew, but we didn't know. And we just
looked at each other at one point and we were
like the you know what.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
But the sandwich back you said of like something from
your grandfather, like or your grandparents?
Speaker 1 (18:06):
What was that? Which one? Sorry, you said, your grandma
presented your something?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, my grandma. Yeah. So basically we opened locks in
a box. And she is a big part of our story.
Her name is Lenny, my grandma. She's ninety and a
lot of the recipes come from her and she comes
in and she makes them, which makes a huge mess
in the kitchen. And she goes around and bosses people
around at work. So she's very much a part of it.
But one day she was moving houses, she was clearing
out storage boxes and she got this. I'll bring it
(18:32):
and i'll show it to you. It's pretty amazing, but
it's the original sandwich bag from my great ground I
still had it. She had it in a box in
a box, in a box in a box in the garage,
deep somewhere that she hadn't looked at for sixty seventy years,
and she goes, oh, I found this. I thought you'd
like it. And I just burst into tears.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I was like, could describe the bag? Can you see?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, it's a brown, brown paper bag and it's stamped
the you know, the wording on is and you'll love this,
because maybe you won't, but I loved it. But when
we developed Locks and a box's brand, I had no reference.
We went to a graphic design and we said, this
is what we're dreaming of.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
And he used the same words and the same lines
on our brand in two thousand and nineteen as what
was on my grandfather's great grandfather's sandwich bag from the
nineteen hundreds. So it said A Gizovich.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Which is my great ground.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
It said a Gizovich, his name, A large variety of canned,
a large variety of provisions always in stock, and locks.
And the box's tagline was locksno box, appetizing provisions for
any occasion. And we used these two lines which was
the border of our locks box when we first started.
And then my grandma put the sandwich bag in front
(19:49):
of me and it had two lines and it said
a large it said appetizing provisions or something like that
on it, and then it said the same in theory,
like it was the same the essence it was, say
massag from all that time ago. And I was just
blown away. I just sobbed.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I was like happy, happily, happily.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I was like this, this just makes so much sense.
It could finally like understand why it was called to
do this because it's always been in me. I guess.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So you had locks in the box, locks in the
box in Bondai, Yeah, where'd you go from there?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
We went from Bondai to a tiny store and Cujie
on Havelock Avenue during COVID, so we opened in December
of twenty nineteen. COVID hit March, so we had one store. Yeah,
and then COVID happened. We lost our entire catering company.
So again everything happened for a reason. We had the
(20:43):
deli that was keeping us afloat and we went from
three days a week to being a seven day week
operation and from that, the momentum just grew and during
COVID we just opened yeah the store and Cujie.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
So was the Culdie one exactly the same concept as Bondi.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
It was yes, hole in the wall, it had three seats.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Wait take it the other way.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
This one had it all, but it only had three
seats inside a bar, seating in the window. It was
about twenty square meters. Bond I was about fifteen square meters.
Did that and then we decided to be a bit
of a venturous and we went across to Manly, which
was ultimately not the best business decision for us. We
were that we had momentum, but we didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Have resources and you couldn't fund it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
No, I'm resource funding was okay, people, it was like
a people people capital. Yeah, we would. We opened within
you know, six weeks of each other. So we had
Bondi and then like a year later we opened Couldji
and then six weeks later we had an opportunity to
the too quick and the why wasn't you know, it
wasn't passed down enough from myself to make people in
(21:49):
Manly believe that we were here for it, you know,
because it's authentic to us because this is what we
know and what we love and I missed that and
that was a really good lesson for me and in scaling.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
So can you can I ask you questions because that's interesting
when you had bondo and did you and your wife
split duties? Did you go on one and she went
the other one? Like because like often people who set
up these busy girl they're going to set up ten
of these, but there's only two people, two principles at
the beginning. It's it's an age old sort of problem
that you can't distill to the people who got to run,
(22:24):
for example, manly the same passion or you know, understanding
of the story et cetera, as you and your wife
might have running two different stores.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Was that the case is that it was? Was that
the mistake should.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Should I be honest with you, be honest? You want
the real truth. We had a daughter who passed away
about three months old. Well, we opened Bondai and then
we had our daughter born who had a really subvigiate
condition and she passed away and so before before could yeah,
so it was over. We stretched us sel and she
(23:02):
was just needing to needing time. And I thought to myself, like,
you know, we have momentum, We got to keep going,
got to open another one, and so I think it
was that I didn't give myself enough time to, like,
you know, fully heal from what had happened. We went,
you know, I kind of probably used it as a
bit of a band aid to open another store and
then another store as a distraction.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Absolutely what you should have been grieving about. Absolutely, well
you probably were grieving, but you weren't. Yeah, yeah, trying
to avoid it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I was trying to avoid it. And I think my
expression of myself at that time was to go and create,
and it gave me a sense of, you know, feeling
normal and feeling like, you know, I was being able to, yeah,
to continue to do what I love because we had momentum.
So it was a really challenging time.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
It was.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
We had a lot of momentum. We had a lot
of people wanting us to open in other locations, and
so we did. But again, as I say, like, ultimately
we just didn't have people in the right place to
share a why and so manly, some for some amazing
I don't know how, somebody knocked on our door and
(24:09):
said we loved this location, are you interested in selling?
And I said, I couldn't have come at a better time.
Absolutely kind of thing. And so we sold manly and
then we opened in Marrickville.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Same time, Locks and the Box.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So Marrickville, we initially opened a food
truck because I was desperate to get into the location.
I live in the Inn West now, so I wanted
to be able to get bagels closer to home. So
we opened in a food truck. And then my dream
location in Marrickville I was. I had been dreaming about
it for years. It was the old cornersmith site on
the corner of Iluara and Petersham Roads. Drove past it
(24:43):
multiple times and there was always somebody in it. And
then you know, we started the trailer.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And it was where'd you buy the trailer? Just out
the front?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, I parked it outside of somebody's office building in
on Shepherd Street in Merrickvillegal he it was with the
So I found the place. I found the truck on
face Spook Marketplace and then bought it off of the
girl and they said, well, how come you get to, like,
you know, just have this truck. He's oh, my boyfriend
owns the building kind of thing, and I said, can
I chat to him? So sure, I said, how much
would you want for me? Just I didn't want to
(25:12):
move it anywhere. I was like, this is great, it's
in Merrickville. It just so happened that it was in Merrickville.
I was looking for a food truck to find a
space in Merrickville, and then Marketplace put me on fifty
two Shepherd Street, Merrickville. So I just said to that's like,
well it costs for us to stay here, just a
couple hundred bucks, no worries. And I was like, amazing,
let's do it. And yeah, So we did it and
(25:32):
we started trading from there, and it was it was
busy from day one. And so I was leaving one
day exhausted, and I went on a drive by of
that store that I always loved with my you know, somba, like,
oh I wish I could I wish this could be ours.
And as I turned the corner there was a Pullye
sign in the window, and I must have called the
guy like six times in a row to be like whatever,
it's gonna take, whatever, whatever you want, whatever it's going
(25:54):
to take, Like I want this site, and so yeah,
he be answered my call, and that was.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
How important it can you to be in the moment
in order to be able to leverage opportunities.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So you know, you you've decided, Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I really want to have a shop and marry full
in this particular spot if possible, But I'm not going
to hit at the moment. But the way you stayed
in the moment is that you actually decided to buy
the truck and get these people who are in the building,
and then you did the deal to be able to
stay at the front, which meant you were in the area,
which means you're driving around the area all the time.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
How important is it to stay in the moment the
most important all the time.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
You have to you have to be ahead of the moment.
In my opinion, for business, you always have to be
thinking ahead. I probably ADHD Yeah like I.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Because only here you lost your order. Yeah, and you
know that would have been tough enough. But to get
back off up off the canvas and apply energy intellectual
energy as well, not just physical intellectual energy, that's.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
A big deal. How to it affect your relationship is
your relationship, it's gone.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
From strength to strength to be honest. I have to
be honest. It's also like to be able to do
this and to be able to be thinking, you know,
two steps ahead all the time. You have to have
that support system at home. So my wife, we have
a three year old son and four month old baby.
Now another son, so we've got two sons, and she
is just a breath of fresh air, supports everything that
I do, just says you go and I'll back you.
(27:22):
So look, it came from my dad. My dad was
an entrepreneur, did his own thing for years. I just
I think I've followed in his footsteps without even realizing
how much of an impact he was making on me
growing up. I think I've just always I've always been quick.
He was quick, and I learnt that way. I learned
that if you want something, go and do it. I
hadn't do it for you.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But how did you get over the issue of getting
the right people say for marriedful because you can be
everywhere yeah, or or do you go and say, okay,
I'm setting Marrickful up. That's my latest shop. I'll spend
all the time there and the other too, is running nicely.
How do you work it?
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I think what I it's investing in people. So we
work in the stores in the beginning, like quite heavily.
I set everything up, I do all the design with
our graphic designer, so I do the fit outs. I'm there,
I'm you know, from seven in the morning with the builders,
managing the builds and things like that, and I meet
people that you know are interested, you know, they see
us fitting things out. I chat with people, and I
(28:24):
think from there, it's like I've become a good judge
of character. I think when it comes to managing people,
you know, I think it's I've become a good judge
of character with who I want to represent us in
our stores, and I spend a lot of time with them.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Is that as a result of having been a bad
judge of character, so you know what not to do,
what not to choose. Being good judge characters, I mean,
I know to choose that person or I know not
to choose that person.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
I think it's a gut feel thing that I've always
lived my life off of, Like if something feels good
and it feels right, go with it. If it doesn't, don't.
I think I use that to make majority of the
decision and lots of my gut feel things have I've
known that they were not right, and I've gone with
it anyway, and I've ended up, you know, shooting myself
in the foot and learning a big lesson from things.
(29:10):
But with people, I like to give people, you know,
that's the whole. I trust people until given a reason
not to trust them, where I think there's a lot
of people need to gain trust for somebody to then
trust them, whereas I sort of start the other way around,
so like, I'm going to trust you on face value
to who you like. What you see with me is
what you get. So I treat other people like that,
and then if I have a reason to not trust them,
(29:30):
it comes up pretty quickly and my gut feel that
they may not essentially be the right person for something,
and then we act quite quickly on things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Do you have to be ruthless?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
And I don't mean that in a bad way, but
I don't mean ruthless like asshole. Yeah, I mean fast
and direct and straight and honest quickly? Do you do
you have to be that person in business, especially where
you got staff.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I've learned to be more like that. I think. I
see again, it goes back to my my youth was
that my front door at my home was always open
to anyone and everybody. My house was a safe space
for people. I didn't know it at the time that
my house was that place, but it was. And so
I sort of see what we're doing now in hospital
(30:17):
as a continuation of like how I was raised, that
I open our doors in hospital to bring people in.
And sometimes I miss the mark. I bring people in
because I see how people have been let on in
the industry and been treated awfully in this industry and
see that people come to us, and I want to
nurture people, and I want to take care of people. Ultimately,
(30:38):
That's what my parents did and that's what I want
to do. And sorry about stuff. So I'm ruthless when
I think I put the time in in the beginning
to you know, really make sure that they're the right people.
And I don't like to be ruthless. I like to
take care. But ultimately, you know, as you know, it's
(31:00):
a whole high Sloan firefast because keep these the wrong
people around for too long and it can really compromise
all the effort and.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Hard poison to the business. It poisons the whole lot.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So it makes a lot of people have a lot
of difficulty terminating people, like saying, look, we don't want
to hear anymore. It doesn't work with Do you have
like a a.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Scroupt that you use to move someone on?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
No, I don't tell the truth. To be honest, I
mostly put it back on myself. A lot of the time.
I put it back on myself because I often find
that when people are not performing in their roles or
they're not doing their job, it's like, was it a
people thing or was it you know, was it a
them problem, or was it you know, a managemental or
(31:46):
not having the right system and process in place. So
I'm not ruthless, and if somebody crosses me and does
the wrong thing, or treat somebody disrespectfully with words or
physically or something like that, I have no patience for that.
But if there's people that are genuinely trying, and you
can see that they're genuinely genuinely trying, but it's just
not working, I often will then take responsibility and and
(32:11):
not do you know, not not make it about them,
and make it more about myself and the company, and
you know that we we didn't set them up for success.
And we're trying as best as we can, but we're
not really getting anywhere. So it's best that we sort
of go our separate ways. So I always try. We
you know, have meetings and lots of meetings, and it's
like it's never ruthless unless it has to be ruthless
(32:32):
if somebody's crossed a boundary. It's it's usually that we're
just we're just not the right fit for each.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Other, and that's it. I think that sort of gets
you a lot of trouble to this is not working out.
We're not the right fit for each other.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
But that's the truth, right, it's not the right fing.
If they were the right fit, we wouldn't be having
this conversation. So at the end of the day, we're not.
No matter what's happened in the past, the only thing
you get from looking back is the saw neck, right,
So like what's happened in the past is in the past.
We can't check, but it can change what happens in
the future. And if we're not the right if we
weren't the right fit, and we've tried tried again, then
it's like you we we we just got our separate ways. Recently,
(33:10):
we have no where's that?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, it is a sit down place to sit down.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
It's a very different level of service.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
And where is it? Where is it?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It's right next to my We would just recently moved
because of another council problem. We've moved our takeaway shop
into number three of or the one. You don't know
about that one? Edit this out please?
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, So where's where's where's the new restaurant in?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, directly across the park. So we have where we
first opened was that tiny little takeway shop. We've moved
to the corner to sit down place for locks and
box where we do. We've expanded our menu and done,
you know, changed the concept there. No, they're not one.
So we have three.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sites in Bondai, three sites now, yes, And is the
bistro is not a Dai, It's not a Daly.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
No, it's like it's bistro food. So yeah, lunch and dinner.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Lunch and dinner Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then evenings. But
this is a whole different like caliber of restaurant.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I guess is it a risk?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Of course, and everything's a risky No, But is it
risky do you think because the formula works, the other
formula works.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah, this was a business decision.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
It wasn't because I've always wanted to have a restaurant.
It was that something came up and I saw it
as an opportunity to try a concept that we're thinking
of doing as a company. So it's sort of a test,
which is we have over the years created an amazing
management team with some amazing skills that we thought that
(34:49):
if we wanted to help other restauranteurs with concepts, maybe
we should do something completely separate to Locks, different entity,
everything completely separate, that we can offer a graphic design service,
a menu development service, an operational service.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
And this is your showcase restaurant, and this.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Is what we're testing it on. We're saying, if we
can do this and we can get it right, then
is that another business that we could have simultaneously to Locks,
that we offer a service to other restauranteurs. With our
experience the last few years.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
You're someone might be a someone won't be a share
for whatever they decide they want to go on the
restaurant game will be stro game, whatever the case will be.
They come along to this new business and you can say, well,
here's the showcase is what it can look like, is
what it feels like.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You can walk instid down and have your dinner and we.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Can create that for you if you give us a brief,
will create that for you wherever.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
It is you want to set it up.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Absolutely, but you're still in the testing phase of the
mind that we're only three weeks old. Three weeks old, Well, yeah,
that's it's only you. How's it going really good?
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Really good?
Speaker 1 (35:51):
What sort of food we're talking about we have It's
not just.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
That, you know, people think bistro, they think French food,
but it's a combination of like quite a lot of
like European flavors, so to share like small snacks, share
plates and then you know, we've got one of everything,
sort of ferm mate. We've got a steak fritz, prawns
and a cafe to perry butter. We've got a big
schnitz or that is you know the size of the
whole dinner plates.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Probably it's chicken, chicken.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It's chicken, I wanted to reveal, but we have so
much beef on the menu. So we've got a tatar
and we've got a steak fritz, We've got we've got
a few different beef things, so we thought.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Let's go still. Yeah, so sit down.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, yeah, seventy bottle of wine list that has been
curated by a few people that know their thing around.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Why and how's it going?
Speaker 3 (36:40):
It's going really well.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Do you have like a mailing list or something like
that in your from your Locks in the Box? I mean,
do you keep people's names and details?
Speaker 3 (36:48):
We were thinking about doing it, but we didn't know
if it crossed that whole you know, they signed up
for the Locks in the Box emails.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
To be we can always say, look, we've got this going. Yeah, absolutely,
would you like dinner down? Yeah, don't assume it, you
just say because they must hear, we'd love to know
about that.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yeah. We we definitely have spoken about doing it. But
there's a bit of a challenge of like do you
say that you're you know, do you do you run
the marketing as like you know, locks and the Boxes
open at bistro or do you run it that bistro
bond is now open From the founders of Locks in
a Box.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I would do that which way the second one? I
would say the founders of locks and Box now opened up?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And what's called astro got a good names.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
And because the people might want to know more about it,
and because I guess you do you have a newsletter.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
We don't have anything out at the moment. We've literally
we soft launched that four weeks ago. We've been opened
for three weeks and we've been waiting on council for
outdoor seating, so we've sort of been at fifty percent
capacity for the last three weeks. And as of Friday,
we've got our outdoor seating license. So now we can
really like go for it and market it and push
it because we've got seventy seats now compared to you know,
half of that yes, at Bistro bond.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
At Bistro Bondi and what we're locks in the box
at Locks and a box at Locks and box of course,
and they and they and and you're and.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You're obviously that's all the stuff on Facebook, and it's
a real stick doog the whole.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Thing, you guys going hard on on the socials.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
We've just about six weeks ago employed somebody to help
us for socials. I've been doing it all myself for
the last five years, and it's come to a point
where I'm like Okay, I'm not the best person for
this job, and I really believe that having the best
person that's specialized in what they do to run things
we haven't been able to until now. And now I
feel like we're in a place where my skill set
(38:34):
is just not it's not getting us to it we
really need to be.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, well you probably can also afford to do it
as well. I mean you get to a point where, okay,
let's put a person who's good at this stuff from.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I mean, we're taking a risk. You know, hospitality is
not easy. Hospital is it's it's a there's it's changed
over the years. You know, it costs a lot to
have these businesses, and I'm we're taking a big risk
on scaling and wanting to grow this to we believe
it can get to.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
So where's the old game? Where's the old one game?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So you know, you've got three good sites for locks
in the box, You've now got bonobistro.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Your have a prep kitchen as well.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So you got a prep kitchen and you've got your
you've got yourself set up. Are you thinking for the future,
thinking franchise, what do you think about licenses or what
are you going to do.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I think we're going to try and get to another
six or eight stores to about ten. Yeah, I think
that's the That is the plan. That's the you know,
in the next six months. We're looking at a retail range.
So we obviously are called locks and Box. We've got
a los product that sells really nicely at our stores,
but it's what is it. It's a packet of salmon, right, Yeah.
And we've got like our cream cheeses which we call shmears,
(39:45):
lots of dips, pickled onions, those type of things that
we're looking to get retail. So we're in the process
of moving from a smaller prep kitchen to a larger
one online director that's in Storts, so going to small
local ijs and maybe talk to the.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Guys that happen you mean what wholesalid in.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Yeah, the retail range in under our brand obviously, but
into supermarkets or grossers.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Well, Harris Farm does a lot of that stuff already
for me.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I see, they've got one of those seafood joints out
of Bondo Road is but they've got their brand.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
The seafood's all packaged up.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, a few of those and that's that's clever because
if you're going to a Harris Farm. We live around
Rose Bay, freesimp together one Rose Bay. And let's say
you like that tope of food European food. I don't
remember seeing that anywhere in Harris Farm, for example.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
It's a very small There's there's a few, very very
small range of products. And I just think with like
you know, the last five six years of people getting
to know the product that we're doing, that there's a
bit of hopefully there's a bit of trust there, so
if we package it up nicely, which I love branding
and I love marketing. So I'm thinking that's probably the
next step is to do some more retail. But then
(40:52):
you'd like to have another another six probably another six
stores in the next.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Two years, another six stores, so you'll have nine stores,
and you'll have your you'll have your showcase, which is
a bond. Yes, absolutely, maybe, and maybe you can have
some more clients that you're servicing as well, setting setting
setting up other people's businesses for them.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
And and then what because you're in a young yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Don't feel it, geez, thirty five old, I know. I
think for now I'm really focused on refining and making
sure that we get it right because we've had a
lot of lessons in the last couple of years. I
think big lessons that will help us with the next
few years. I don't really see past the next few years.
(41:36):
I definitely want to get to this amount of stores,
and then after that, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I think it's by the way, that's that's the best
way to be. That's where you should be, not planning.
Wait until the adventure brings you.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well, congratulations Candy Burger. But sorry, Candy, congratulations Candy Berger.
Well done on locks in a Box. Let's see how
a bistroy because that that's that's probably your biggest risk
of the moment because there's only you and I'm not
suggesting as any other reason why.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
It's risky, but it's new, so you don't know what
it's going to. It's the other stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
You know, it's done the test of time, and another
six on their way and you've got two kids, so
you're killing it.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Thank you, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
You're most welcome.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Thanks
It's a better if you say first time.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, easy, Kenny Burge're welcome to the mentor
thank you so much for having me. All right, you're
the CEO. I guess founded too of locks in a box. No,
(00:25):
I know what a box is, but what's locks?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Locks is what the traditional word was lax. It's a
Yiddish word for salmon phillip or salmon belly. And then
when the word locks lax was taken over to America,
people couldn't say lax properly, so the Americans got lax.
So that's how we got locks.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Okay, then we got it locks in Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, And it's it's interesting for me anyway when you
say Yiddish, that's a sort of a slang version of Hebrew.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, well it's sort of not really, but it is.
It's not really Hebrew.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
It was a language that the Jewish people spoke in
the back, back a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah. Yeah, and in Yiddish is it's Jewish people still
speak with Yiddish a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I think, No, not not necessarily, but we all, I
think use Yiddish words like schmitz, kutzpah, there's so schlep
perfect one. We've just got it. We've got a back
coming out that says massive like words schlepper cross it
as it's a huge bag.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Schlepper exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
That's schleb means schlepping around. The joint means you're sort
of dragging your feet doing your best.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Absolutely schlepping anything around.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Really, it's it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I love all those Yiddish words, like I think a
feeler on the roof when I think of Yiddish words.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, ndred percent that's it, and we all use them now,
not just Jewish people.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's universal exactly. It's probably you probably can look it up.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You probably can pick up the Oxford Dictionary or something
like that and Yiddish words.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Then locks probably is in there, locks and box. So
what is your business? What is it about? What is
locks in a box?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Sure? Locks in a box. It actually came as a
happy accident, to be fairly honest with you. We were
working pre COVID from home. I had a catering company
and we got in trouble, which you know seems to
be like a reoccurring story in my life with the council.
So we can get into that later. But council knocked
on our door and said, you can't work from home anymore,
(02:24):
go and find a store.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
This is pre COVID.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, we got we got a knock on the door.
I was working catering.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
From my home for preparing stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
For private clients. So my background is that it was
a private chef. And then I ended up catering for
my clients for bigger functions, birthdays, anniversaries, New Year's, all
that kind of stuff. But I didn't have a preparation kitchen,
so I was working from home, going direct from my
house to the client's house.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
With the cool food parton, with all the food, yeah,
with all the food. Yes, I was preparing food for
your house.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I don't Yeah, I didn't know there was anything wrong
with it either, until you need a whole bunch of
different life senses and permissions, and there's all these regulations
that when you do things from home, even if it
is private to a customer or client's house, you still
need to be in an approved facility to do that.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Shut you down.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
They shut us down. And yeah, so we ended up
going to at a site in Bondai. I was looking
at it standing there, thought to myself, I've always wanted
Jewish deli and I was going to call it Lillian
Fred's after my grandparents. But then my wife stood on
the grass outside and said, wouldn't it be great people
can grab their locks in the box and sit on
the grass and have their bagel. And I said, what
did you just say? And she said they're locks in
(03:34):
a box. And I was like, oh my god, light
bulb moment, and I was like, that's the business name,
that's the concept, that's what we're doing here. We're going
to do locks in a box. So we were standing
at seventeen Warners Avenue where it was yeah, it was
a garage before that, and they had just redeveloped it
and there was this huge site two hundred square meters
(03:55):
and the landlord was like, are you interested in it?
And I i'med in art and I just thought to myself,
way too big for us. I can't do this. But
I loved it, but it wasn't right. So I turned
my back and as I turned my back to the site,
I saw a fullase sign in the shop window at
ninety six Glenare Avenue, which is which was our first door.
(04:16):
And when my wife said locks in a box, all
of the things started going in my brain about this
is a concept in itself. Maybe it is a takeaway business.
Maybe we're not ready to have a whole, sit down
deli thing in a two hundred square meter I've been
working from home, never paid a rent before, never read
a lease before. You know, I was flying under the radar.
(04:36):
So at that point I turned my back and I
saw that site, and I saw the number, and we
walked away and I said, the site's not right for us,
but I'm going to call this number here. And that
was the start of locks in a Box.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So it's just so I just get the location right.
So Glenair Revenue. Is it on the corner beyond cur
Lewis Street, so Claus and Glenaire.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Yeah, so you know where the roundabout is, bottom of
Glennair and Blair Streets, So that is Glenaire and then
the other side is Warners Avenue.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Right, So we were.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
On the roundabout in before it was.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Developed because you had a butcher on one side.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You go to direct across the road from butcher.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, and because there's a few there's a few food
outlets in that building. There are, And it just so
happens that the person who owns that building.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I think his name is Burger.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Too, yes, not related, and his wife is Candy Berger
as well. So we get I get their invoices or
tax receipts from Venroy and I thought, oh, I didn't
go shopping today or Mercedes Benz rings me and says
your car's ready to be picked up side a mini
creeper at the time, and I was like, oh, yeah, sure,
I'll go pick up that BMW, no worries. So we
have a joke now because I know them quite well.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
A lot of property.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, they're in a lot of property. So that site
was the big site that we weren't ready for. So
we're currently fast forward six years. We're actually now in
that site as of three weeks ago. But for the
five years we were across directly across the road in
the tiny little hole in the wall. Yeah, just behind
the tree behind the park.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, I know exactly the place. Yeah, and I
haven't been in there, but I should have gone in there.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So just explain to me what you what.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
You guys were selling, So not just locks, not just
yeah a box with smoked salmon and like a bagel
or something.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, Well to be honest, the whole business was not
supposed to be locks in a Box. When we got
in trouble with counsel. We had a catering company, so
we didn't have any intention to do a locks in
a box per se. But when we had to think
about the paying a rent or you know, having staff,
we were purely doing functions on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
(06:38):
and that was sort of enough for me and my
wife to.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Sort of no, this was from.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Home, right, So we thought to ourselves illegally, yeah, allegedly,
allegedly exactly, there we go. But yeah, we thought to ourselves,
if we're going to open a retail, if we have
to move out of home, we have to go into
a retail space. We can't purely survive off of three
days a week of catering if it rained or something happens,
somebody counseled. So we thought to ourselves, we need to
have something to sort of.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Like subsidize smooth things out, exactly, yeah, because otherwise.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Exactly, So we thought to ourselves, well, why don't we
do a retail concept of this deli? That was always
my dream back you know, from before I was a.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Private chef in New York, sow Delhi.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Not New York, because I our background is Polish and
my grandparents had great grandparents had a deli in the
UK in like the nineteen hundreds. So our style of
Jewish deli there was from Eastern Europe, not necessarily from.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
The New York soul.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
No, it was the opposite.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So you were not to me that pastramis and all
those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
We do have aastamis, but that's I think it's not
just a New York thing. I think that's something that
has been around for many, many years inside the Jewish communities.
So we have pastrami on our menu and we've got
a few things there are definitely like you know, bits
and pieces that are in I spent about ten years
in America growing up, so I've been I've been around.
(08:04):
I did ten years London, ten years America and now yeah,
the last fifteen years here in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So can you get my mouth warning, But can you
explain to me the appeal and maybe to our audience
as well, of the it's not Jewish food, it's it's
sort of European food, especially from the places like Poland
(08:31):
and Hungry and all those sorts of places and became
after the early part of the twentieth century, like nineteen
oh five, right through in the big immigration wave when
it's the United States and they're coming from everywhere in
Europe everywhere, and then again probably after World War one
and two. What is the peal of those foods that
(08:51):
came from those places like Poland and Hungry and probably
Russia to some extent and some of the other places.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And what is that food look like.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think it's it's the comfort the comfort food, you know.
So the food itself, most of you know, bagels and
pastroami sandwiches and chicken MutS and ball soups were always
around family occasions.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Not just for Jewish people. That no, not on anybody.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah yeah, I mean for anybody. But it was. My
understanding is like my grandparents, you know, were from Poland,
and then when they moved over to the UK, they
brought those recipes with them to the UK, And so
for me, it's all my family sort of ever known
in terms of my other side of the family's German.
So there's some influences of German bits and pieces throughout
(09:39):
locks and a box as well, but that food has
just always been there. It's what they grew up eating
that they didn't have the luxury of, you know, all
these different cultural backgrounds. People in Poland made Polish food,
you know, and so I think like when everybody immigrated,
that was the food, you know, my grandparents made, and
then that was became the food that my parents made,
(10:01):
and now you know, it's the food that I'm making.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
So yeah, but it's because I actually think of it
as you know, I'm not Jewish. I'm not from either
one of those places. From European but not that, but
I actually quite I like that type of food, and
I look at it as comfort food, like you know,
a big thick piece of dark bread with pastrami and.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Some some sort of pickle on there.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
It's a mustard.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
It's a mustard. It makes my mouth water just think
about it. And by the way, you can't get it.
I'm my office in the city and you can't get
in the city anywhere. Probably if I was going to
get it, I'll probably have to go to Bondi. I
think some or some sort of Russian deli. There's a
few of those around Bondi. You don't see Polish delis
that much these days, but there's a few Russian ones.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
If I was, if I.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Want to eat that sort of food, which now you're
telling me about it, I'm trying to think where I
could buy it.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Obviously your your joint.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
But how is it that Australians know about that stuff?
I mean, I can't even know. I can't even tell
you how I know about that sort of stuffing. I'm
green and Irish, so I've been in New York and
I've had some stuff in New York, but I didn't
get that sense of taste from there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
How is it US Australians not better?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Or is it because I was sort of grew most
of up I spent most of my life in these suburbs.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Probably a lot of influence from the Eastern Suburbs. Definitely.
I would say that there's a huge Jewish community that
lives in the Eastern Suburbs that you know, again background
and heritage, and that our culture has been eating this
food forever. There's not that many places. I think when
we opened Locks about six years ago, we're one of
the few people sort of doing this type of food.
(11:35):
I think Australians are like now, it's really common. I
think it's been a bit of a boom in the
last like six years. I think COVID did that. The
sandwich game or the bagel game has definitely blown up
in the last six years, is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Absolutely, Well, how do you mean a sandwich game? The
games people are out looking for sandwiches and bagels, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I think COVID really changed the way people were eating
because as like, essentially a sandwich could be one of
those you don't go, you don't need to go and
sit down at a cafe and be served by somebody,
take it away, quick takeaway food, and that's you know,
in the last six years, there are just sandwich shops everywhere.
There's heaps of bagel shops. There's lots of people, you know,
(12:15):
trying to make something work with these takeaway sandwich businesses.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Do you think Australians too, because in other industries I've
seen this, do you think Australians to post COVID were
have been during that period and post that have been
searching for exotic stuff. So I don't mean like, you know,
like weird exotic stuff, but exotic foods, you know, like
I want to I want to just blow my life
(12:42):
up a little bit, just you light up a bit.
I want something that's a bit unusual. You like puffrom
getting takeaway. There's convenience, but I want to have something
that I don't normally get, Like I'm not going to
buy it at this one of those shops in them
also you center where there's you know, everyone's sort of
selling the same stuff. Do you think Australians are trying
to light their lives up a little bit? Do you
think we it's exotic?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I don't, to be honest, I don't to you, but.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Like a bagel, you mean, yeah, see I see bagels
Like a bagel is so not exotic to mix. I've
been eating it since probably the first thing that I
could have eaten, you know, solid food. My parents probably
put a bagel in my hand or something like that.
I can imagine. I don't see them as exotic. I
think it's now it's I think people are just wanting
(13:24):
ease with what they're doing. Nobody's really exploring too much.
I mean there's yeah, I think there's just like every
single time you open Instagram or you go on a
public like a publication, it's just like new sandwich shop
popping up, new sandwich shop popping up. I feel like
there's actually think people are being quite boring in a
way that everybody's just following each other and not trying
(13:46):
anything exotic in you, which I think it's time. I
think I'm ready to see not just another sandwich shot
pop up online. So yeah, it's not going to be me.
I'm not going in that direction, So don't look at
me for that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
But you're going to stick to what you know.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
And they keep coming back to that as a as
a business owner, a staple, as staple, as a as
a something that hasn't changed forever, like I don't want
to change. It's like, why don't fix what's that's not broken?
So it's just honoring that and making sure that you're
doing it well with intention and care and love into
the product. And to me, like, we're not going exotic
(14:25):
where we're really trying to stick to what we know
and go back like it's it's essentially my roots and
so we are we're.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
How important is because that's that's an important point you
make when it comes to business anyway. How important do
you think in your success has been the authenticity of
the story of why you're doing it, like, you know
what it means to you, What this means to you
because the how and sort of builds authenticity of course,
but how important has it been to keep you going?
(14:54):
Because you know you're going to go hard? Time is
going to have ship that's happening that you didn't expect.
It's going to come at you from every direction. You
can have lean days, lean weeks. These days, you can't
pick any trend the trends tell me about it. It really
changed that you think, well, Christmas time should be busy,
for example, and you're not going to get busy and
get busy in January or November and.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Then it rains and it's not supposed to rain where.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
There's all the shop.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
How important is that story, your story about what is
it meaningful to you? How does it carry you through
the bad times?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah? To be honest, like, I'm sure a lot of
people would say that it's everything so then, but I
genuinely believe that Locks wouldn't be where it is without
the authenticity piece because I didn't even realize it. You know,
my grand my grandma handed me an original sandwich bag
from my great grandfather's deli on the day that we
opened Bondai, and she didn't tell me prior. In all
(15:47):
the talking about things and all the planning, she never
once mentioned to me that, oh, you know, your great
grandfather did this and your great auntie and uncle worked
in this business. She just it just wasn't something that
she shared with me. So when I look back at
it now, like you know, growing up in a home
like that welcomed everybody, and that there was my family
(16:07):
was always generous with food. My dad was always cooking
my you know, we would I would come home and
there'll be people around my table that I didn't even know.
Like those type of things have sort of like carried
me through to where I am today. And we opened
this bagel business in food and I didn't even know
that this was what my grand my roots. It didn't
even it wasn't even shared with me. It was literally,
(16:28):
I genuinely believe that it was. How else do you
explain it? How else do you explain that I've moved
from three different continents without speaking to my grandparents about this,
without my mum even mentioning anything. That I ended up
six years ago opening a deli in Bondai, and it
was it was out of nowhere. We had to think fast.
We had a catering company. I didn't want to I
(16:49):
didn't want to rely on that three days week. So
I was like, Okay, I'm going to put a Jewish
deli at the front of this shop. We're going to
do pick up and take. Like the pick up window was.
There was order at one window, pick up at the
other window. No one was going to come in and
no one was going to come out. And I thought
to myself, I love bagels. Everybody loves bagels. Let's do this.
And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I
(17:10):
had to just think that. You know, as we do
in business, you have to think fast, you have to pivot,
you have to muster something up to try and make
something work. And we had this deli that from day one,
thank you know, thank you to our community and our
our customers, was well received. And then only after that
I found out through my wife's parents that her grandparents
(17:32):
had a deli in the UK, a non Jewish deli,
so pork and all, you know, sausages and all those
kind of things. But within twenty minutes of each other's drive.
At the same period of time, my wife's grandparents great
grandparents had a deli and my great grandparents had a deli,
and neither of us knew about it until we had
already had locks and box open and running, and it
was just seemed like to them like they didn't need
(17:53):
to share it with us. It was almost like they
thought we knew, but we didn't know. And we just
looked at each other at one point and we were
like the you know what.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
But the sandwich back you said of like something from
your grandfather, like or your grandparents?
Speaker 1 (18:06):
What was that? Which one? Sorry, you said, your grandma
presented your something?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, my grandma. Yeah. So basically we opened locks in
a box. And she is a big part of our story.
Her name is Lenny, my grandma. She's ninety and a
lot of the recipes come from her and she comes
in and she makes them, which makes a huge mess
in the kitchen. And she goes around and bosses people
around at work. So she's very much a part of it.
But one day she was moving houses, she was clearing
out storage boxes and she got this. I'll bring it
(18:32):
and i'll show it to you. It's pretty amazing, but
it's the original sandwich bag from my great ground I
still had it. She had it in a box in
a box, in a box in a box in the garage,
deep somewhere that she hadn't looked at for sixty seventy years,
and she goes, oh, I found this. I thought you'd
like it. And I just burst into tears.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I was like, could describe the bag? Can you see?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, it's a brown, brown paper bag and it's stamped
the you know, the wording on is and you'll love this,
because maybe you won't, but I loved it. But when
we developed Locks and a box's brand, I had no reference.
We went to a graphic design and we said, this
is what we're dreaming of.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
And he used the same words and the same lines
on our brand in two thousand and nineteen as what
was on my grandfather's great grandfather's sandwich bag from the
nineteen hundreds. So it said A Gizovich.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Which is my great ground.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
It said a Gizovich, his name, A large variety of canned,
a large variety of provisions always in stock, and locks.
And the box's tagline was locksno box, appetizing provisions for
any occasion. And we used these two lines which was
the border of our locks box when we first started.
And then my grandma put the sandwich bag in front
(19:49):
of me and it had two lines and it said
a large it said appetizing provisions or something like that
on it, and then it said the same in theory,
like it was the same the essence it was, say
massag from all that time ago. And I was just
blown away. I just sobbed.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I was like happy, happily, happily.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I was like this, this just makes so much sense.
It could finally like understand why it was called to
do this because it's always been in me. I guess.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So you had locks in the box, locks in the
box in Bondai, Yeah, where'd you go from there?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
We went from Bondai to a tiny store and Cujie
on Havelock Avenue during COVID, so we opened in December
of twenty nineteen. COVID hit March, so we had one store. Yeah,
and then COVID happened. We lost our entire catering company.
So again everything happened for a reason. We had the
(20:43):
deli that was keeping us afloat and we went from
three days a week to being a seven day week
operation and from that, the momentum just grew and during
COVID we just opened yeah the store and Cujie.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
So was the Culdie one exactly the same concept as Bondi.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
It was yes, hole in the wall, it had three seats.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Wait take it the other way.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
This one had it all, but it only had three
seats inside a bar, seating in the window. It was
about twenty square meters. Bond I was about fifteen square meters.
Did that and then we decided to be a bit
of a venturous and we went across to Manly, which
was ultimately not the best business decision for us. We
were that we had momentum, but we didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Have resources and you couldn't fund it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
No, I'm resource funding was okay, people, it was like
a people people capital. Yeah, we would. We opened within
you know, six weeks of each other. So we had
Bondi and then like a year later we opened Couldji
and then six weeks later we had an opportunity to
the too quick and the why wasn't you know, it
wasn't passed down enough from myself to make people in
(21:49):
Manly believe that we were here for it, you know,
because it's authentic to us because this is what we
know and what we love and I missed that and
that was a really good lesson for me and in scaling.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
So can you can I ask you questions because that's interesting
when you had bondo and did you and your wife
split duties? Did you go on one and she went
the other one? Like because like often people who set
up these busy girl they're going to set up ten
of these, but there's only two people, two principles at
the beginning. It's it's an age old sort of problem
that you can't distill to the people who got to run,
(22:24):
for example, manly the same passion or you know, understanding
of the story et cetera, as you and your wife
might have running two different stores.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Was that the case is that it was? Was that
the mistake should.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Should I be honest with you, be honest? You want
the real truth. We had a daughter who passed away
about three months old. Well, we opened Bondai and then
we had our daughter born who had a really subvigiate
condition and she passed away and so before before could yeah,
so it was over. We stretched us sel and she
(23:02):
was just needing to needing time. And I thought to myself, like,
you know, we have momentum, We got to keep going,
got to open another one, and so I think it
was that I didn't give myself enough time to, like,
you know, fully heal from what had happened. We went,
you know, I kind of probably used it as a
bit of a band aid to open another store and
then another store as a distraction.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Absolutely what you should have been grieving about. Absolutely, well
you probably were grieving, but you weren't. Yeah, yeah, trying
to avoid it.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I was trying to avoid it. And I think my
expression of myself at that time was to go and create,
and it gave me a sense of, you know, feeling
normal and feeling like, you know, I was being able to, yeah,
to continue to do what I love because we had momentum.
So it was a really challenging time.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
It was.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
We had a lot of momentum. We had a lot
of people wanting us to open in other locations, and
so we did. But again, as I say, like, ultimately
we just didn't have people in the right place to
share a why and so manly, some for some amazing
I don't know how, somebody knocked on our door and
(24:09):
said we loved this location, are you interested in selling?
And I said, I couldn't have come at a better time.
Absolutely kind of thing. And so we sold manly and
then we opened in Marrickville.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Same time, Locks and the Box.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So Marrickville, we initially opened a food
truck because I was desperate to get into the location.
I live in the Inn West now, so I wanted
to be able to get bagels closer to home. So
we opened in a food truck. And then my dream
location in Marrickville I was. I had been dreaming about
it for years. It was the old cornersmith site on
the corner of Iluara and Petersham Roads. Drove past it
(24:43):
multiple times and there was always somebody in it. And
then you know, we started the trailer.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And it was where'd you buy the trailer? Just out
the front?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, I parked it outside of somebody's office building in
on Shepherd Street in Merrickvillegal he it was with the
So I found the place. I found the truck on
face Spook Marketplace and then bought it off of the
girl and they said, well, how come you get to, like,
you know, just have this truck. He's oh, my boyfriend
owns the building kind of thing, and I said, can
I chat to him? So sure, I said, how much
would you want for me? Just I didn't want to
(25:12):
move it anywhere. I was like, this is great, it's
in Merrickville. It just so happened that it was in Merrickville.
I was looking for a food truck to find a
space in Merrickville, and then Marketplace put me on fifty
two Shepherd Street, Merrickville. So I just said to that's like,
well it costs for us to stay here, just a
couple hundred bucks, no worries. And I was like, amazing,
let's do it. And yeah, So we did it and
(25:32):
we started trading from there, and it was it was
busy from day one. And so I was leaving one
day exhausted, and I went on a drive by of
that store that I always loved with my you know, somba, like,
oh I wish I could I wish this could be ours.
And as I turned the corner there was a Pullye
sign in the window, and I must have called the
guy like six times in a row to be like whatever,
it's gonna take, whatever, whatever you want, whatever it's going
(25:54):
to take, Like I want this site, and so yeah,
he be answered my call, and that was.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
How important it can you to be in the moment
in order to be able to leverage opportunities.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So you know, you you've decided, Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I really want to have a shop and marry full
in this particular spot if possible, But I'm not going
to hit at the moment. But the way you stayed
in the moment is that you actually decided to buy
the truck and get these people who are in the building,
and then you did the deal to be able to
stay at the front, which meant you were in the area,
which means you're driving around the area all the time.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
How important is it to stay in the moment the
most important all the time.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
You have to you have to be ahead of the moment.
In my opinion, for business, you always have to be
thinking ahead. I probably ADHD Yeah like I.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Because only here you lost your order. Yeah, and you
know that would have been tough enough. But to get
back off up off the canvas and apply energy intellectual
energy as well, not just physical intellectual energy, that's.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
A big deal. How to it affect your relationship is
your relationship, it's gone.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
From strength to strength to be honest. I have to
be honest. It's also like to be able to do
this and to be able to be thinking, you know,
two steps ahead all the time. You have to have
that support system at home. So my wife, we have
a three year old son and four month old baby.
Now another son, so we've got two sons, and she
is just a breath of fresh air, supports everything that
I do, just says you go and I'll back you.
(27:22):
So look, it came from my dad. My dad was
an entrepreneur, did his own thing for years. I just
I think I've followed in his footsteps without even realizing
how much of an impact he was making on me
growing up. I think I've just always I've always been quick.
He was quick, and I learnt that way. I learned
that if you want something, go and do it. I
hadn't do it for you.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But how did you get over the issue of getting
the right people say for marriedful because you can be
everywhere yeah, or or do you go and say, okay,
I'm setting Marrickful up. That's my latest shop. I'll spend
all the time there and the other too, is running nicely.
How do you work it?
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I think what I it's investing in people. So we
work in the stores in the beginning, like quite heavily.
I set everything up, I do all the design with
our graphic designer, so I do the fit outs. I'm there,
I'm you know, from seven in the morning with the builders,
managing the builds and things like that, and I meet
people that you know are interested, you know, they see
us fitting things out. I chat with people, and I
(28:24):
think from there, it's like I've become a good judge
of character. I think when it comes to managing people,
you know, I think it's I've become a good judge
of character with who I want to represent us in
our stores, and I spend a lot of time with them.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Is that as a result of having been a bad
judge of character, so you know what not to do,
what not to choose. Being good judge characters, I mean,
I know to choose that person or I know not
to choose that person.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
I think it's a gut feel thing that I've always
lived my life off of, Like if something feels good
and it feels right, go with it. If it doesn't, don't.
I think I use that to make majority of the
decision and lots of my gut feel things have I've
known that they were not right, and I've gone with
it anyway, and I've ended up, you know, shooting myself
in the foot and learning a big lesson from things.
(29:10):
But with people, I like to give people, you know,
that's the whole. I trust people until given a reason
not to trust them, where I think there's a lot
of people need to gain trust for somebody to then
trust them, whereas I sort of start the other way around,
so like, I'm going to trust you on face value
to who you like. What you see with me is
what you get. So I treat other people like that,
and then if I have a reason to not trust them,
(29:30):
it comes up pretty quickly and my gut feel that
they may not essentially be the right person for something,
and then we act quite quickly on things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Do you have to be ruthless?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
And I don't mean that in a bad way, but
I don't mean ruthless like asshole. Yeah, I mean fast
and direct and straight and honest quickly? Do you do
you have to be that person in business, especially where
you got staff.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I've learned to be more like that. I think. I
see again, it goes back to my my youth was
that my front door at my home was always open
to anyone and everybody. My house was a safe space
for people. I didn't know it at the time that
my house was that place, but it was. And so
I sort of see what we're doing now in hospital
(30:17):
as a continuation of like how I was raised, that
I open our doors in hospital to bring people in.
And sometimes I miss the mark. I bring people in
because I see how people have been let on in
the industry and been treated awfully in this industry and
see that people come to us, and I want to
nurture people, and I want to take care of people. Ultimately,
(30:38):
That's what my parents did and that's what I want
to do. And sorry about stuff. So I'm ruthless when
I think I put the time in in the beginning
to you know, really make sure that they're the right people.
And I don't like to be ruthless. I like to
take care. But ultimately, you know, as you know, it's
(31:00):
a whole high Sloan firefast because keep these the wrong
people around for too long and it can really compromise
all the effort and.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Hard poison to the business. It poisons the whole lot.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So it makes a lot of people have a lot
of difficulty terminating people, like saying, look, we don't want
to hear anymore. It doesn't work with Do you have
like a a.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Scroupt that you use to move someone on?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
No, I don't tell the truth. To be honest, I
mostly put it back on myself. A lot of the time.
I put it back on myself because I often find
that when people are not performing in their roles or
they're not doing their job, it's like, was it a
people thing or was it you know, was it a
them problem, or was it you know, a managemental or
(31:46):
not having the right system and process in place. So
I'm not ruthless, and if somebody crosses me and does
the wrong thing, or treat somebody disrespectfully with words or
physically or something like that, I have no patience for that.
But if there's people that are genuinely trying, and you
can see that they're genuinely genuinely trying, but it's just
not working, I often will then take responsibility and and
(32:11):
not do you know, not not make it about them,
and make it more about myself and the company, and
you know that we we didn't set them up for success.
And we're trying as best as we can, but we're
not really getting anywhere. So it's best that we sort
of go our separate ways. So I always try. We
you know, have meetings and lots of meetings, and it's
like it's never ruthless unless it has to be ruthless
(32:32):
if somebody's crossed a boundary. It's it's usually that we're
just we're just not the right fit for each.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Other, and that's it. I think that sort of gets
you a lot of trouble to this is not working out.
We're not the right fit for each other.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
But that's the truth, right, it's not the right fing.
If they were the right fit, we wouldn't be having
this conversation. So at the end of the day, we're not.
No matter what's happened in the past, the only thing
you get from looking back is the saw neck, right,
So like what's happened in the past is in the past.
We can't check, but it can change what happens in
the future. And if we're not the right if we
weren't the right fit, and we've tried tried again, then
it's like you we we we just got our separate ways. Recently,
(33:10):
we have no where's that?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, it is a sit down place to sit down.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
It's a very different level of service.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
And where is it? Where is it?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It's right next to my We would just recently moved
because of another council problem. We've moved our takeaway shop
into number three of or the one. You don't know
about that one? Edit this out please?
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, So where's where's where's the new restaurant in?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, directly across the park. So we have where we
first opened was that tiny little takeway shop. We've moved
to the corner to sit down place for locks and
box where we do. We've expanded our menu and done,
you know, changed the concept there. No, they're not one.
So we have three.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sites in Bondai, three sites now, yes, And is the
bistro is not a Dai, It's not a Daly.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
No, it's like it's bistro food. So yeah, lunch and dinner.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Lunch and dinner Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then evenings. But
this is a whole different like caliber of restaurant.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I guess is it a risk?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Of course, and everything's a risky No, But is it
risky do you think because the formula works, the other
formula works.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah, this was a business decision.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
It wasn't because I've always wanted to have a restaurant.
It was that something came up and I saw it
as an opportunity to try a concept that we're thinking
of doing as a company. So it's sort of a test,
which is we have over the years created an amazing
management team with some amazing skills that we thought that
(34:49):
if we wanted to help other restauranteurs with concepts, maybe
we should do something completely separate to Locks, different entity,
everything completely separate, that we can offer a graphic design service,
a menu development service, an operational service.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
And this is your showcase restaurant, and this.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Is what we're testing it on. We're saying, if we
can do this and we can get it right, then
is that another business that we could have simultaneously to Locks,
that we offer a service to other restauranteurs. With our
experience the last few years.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
You're someone might be a someone won't be a share
for whatever they decide they want to go on the
restaurant game will be stro game, whatever the case will be.
They come along to this new business and you can say, well,
here's the showcase is what it can look like, is
what it feels like.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You can walk instid down and have your dinner and we.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Can create that for you if you give us a brief,
will create that for you wherever.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
It is you want to set it up.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Absolutely, but you're still in the testing phase of the
mind that we're only three weeks old. Three weeks old, Well, yeah,
that's it's only you. How's it going really good?
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Really good?
Speaker 1 (35:51):
What sort of food we're talking about we have It's
not just.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
That, you know, people think bistro, they think French food,
but it's a combination of like quite a lot of
like European flavors, so to share like small snacks, share
plates and then you know, we've got one of everything,
sort of ferm mate. We've got a steak fritz, prawns
and a cafe to perry butter. We've got a big
schnitz or that is you know the size of the
whole dinner plates.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Probably it's chicken, chicken.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It's chicken, I wanted to reveal, but we have so
much beef on the menu. So we've got a tatar
and we've got a steak fritz, We've got we've got
a few different beef things, so we thought.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Let's go still. Yeah, so sit down.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, yeah, seventy bottle of wine list that has been
curated by a few people that know their thing around.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Why and how's it going?
Speaker 3 (36:40):
It's going really well.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Do you have like a mailing list or something like
that in your from your Locks in the Box? I mean,
do you keep people's names and details?
Speaker 3 (36:48):
We were thinking about doing it, but we didn't know
if it crossed that whole you know, they signed up
for the Locks in the Box emails.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
To be we can always say, look, we've got this going. Yeah, absolutely,
would you like dinner down? Yeah, don't assume it, you
just say because they must hear, we'd love to know
about that.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yeah. We we definitely have spoken about doing it. But
there's a bit of a challenge of like do you
say that you're you know, do you do you run
the marketing as like you know, locks and the Boxes
open at bistro or do you run it that bistro
bond is now open From the founders of Locks in
a Box.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I would do that which way the second one? I
would say the founders of locks and Box now opened up?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And what's called astro got a good names.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
And because the people might want to know more about it,
and because I guess you do you have a newsletter.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
We don't have anything out at the moment. We've literally
we soft launched that four weeks ago. We've been opened
for three weeks and we've been waiting on council for
outdoor seating, so we've sort of been at fifty percent
capacity for the last three weeks. And as of Friday,
we've got our outdoor seating license. So now we can
really like go for it and market it and push
it because we've got seventy seats now compared to you know,
half of that yes, at Bistro bond.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
At Bistro Bondi and what we're locks in the box
at Locks and a box at Locks and box of course,
and they and they and and you're and.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You're obviously that's all the stuff on Facebook, and it's
a real stick doog the whole.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Thing, you guys going hard on on the socials.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
We've just about six weeks ago employed somebody to help
us for socials. I've been doing it all myself for
the last five years, and it's come to a point
where I'm like Okay, I'm not the best person for
this job, and I really believe that having the best
person that's specialized in what they do to run things
we haven't been able to until now. And now I
feel like we're in a place where my skill set
(38:34):
is just not it's not getting us to it we
really need to be.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, well you probably can also afford to do it
as well. I mean you get to a point where, okay,
let's put a person who's good at this stuff from.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I mean, we're taking a risk. You know, hospitality is
not easy. Hospital is it's it's a there's it's changed
over the years. You know, it costs a lot to
have these businesses, and I'm we're taking a big risk
on scaling and wanting to grow this to we believe
it can get to.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
So where's the old game? Where's the old one game?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So you know, you've got three good sites for locks
in the box, You've now got bonobistro.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Your have a prep kitchen as well.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So you got a prep kitchen and you've got your
you've got yourself set up. Are you thinking for the future,
thinking franchise, what do you think about licenses or what
are you going to do.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I think we're going to try and get to another
six or eight stores to about ten. Yeah, I think
that's the That is the plan. That's the you know,
in the next six months. We're looking at a retail range.
So we obviously are called locks and Box. We've got
a los product that sells really nicely at our stores,
but it's what is it. It's a packet of salmon, right, Yeah.
And we've got like our cream cheeses which we call shmears,
(39:45):
lots of dips, pickled onions, those type of things that
we're looking to get retail. So we're in the process
of moving from a smaller prep kitchen to a larger
one online director that's in Storts, so going to small
local ijs and maybe talk to the.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Guys that happen you mean what wholesalid in.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Yeah, the retail range in under our brand obviously, but
into supermarkets or grossers.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Well, Harris Farm does a lot of that stuff already
for me.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I see, they've got one of those seafood joints out
of Bondo Road is but they've got their brand.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
The seafood's all packaged up.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, a few of those and that's that's clever because
if you're going to a Harris Farm. We live around
Rose Bay, freesimp together one Rose Bay. And let's say
you like that tope of food European food. I don't
remember seeing that anywhere in Harris Farm, for example.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
It's a very small There's there's a few, very very
small range of products. And I just think with like
you know, the last five six years of people getting
to know the product that we're doing, that there's a
bit of hopefully there's a bit of trust there, so
if we package it up nicely, which I love branding
and I love marketing. So I'm thinking that's probably the
next step is to do some more retail. But then
(40:52):
you'd like to have another another six probably another six
stores in the next.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Two years, another six stores, so you'll have nine stores,
and you'll have your you'll have your showcase, which is
a bond. Yes, absolutely, maybe, and maybe you can have
some more clients that you're servicing as well, setting setting
setting up other people's businesses for them.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
And and then what because you're in a young yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Don't feel it, geez, thirty five old, I know. I
think for now I'm really focused on refining and making
sure that we get it right because we've had a
lot of lessons in the last couple of years. I
think big lessons that will help us with the next
few years. I don't really see past the next few years.
(41:36):
I definitely want to get to this amount of stores,
and then after that, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I think it's by the way, that's that's the best
way to be. That's where you should be, not planning.
Wait until the adventure brings you.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well, congratulations Candy Burger. But sorry, Candy, congratulations Candy Berger.
Well done on locks in a Box. Let's see how
a bistroy because that that's that's probably your biggest risk
of the moment because there's only you and I'm not
suggesting as any other reason why.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
It's risky, but it's new, so you don't know what
it's going to. It's the other stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
You know, it's done the test of time, and another
six on their way and you've got two kids, so
you're killing it.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Thank you, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
You're most welcome.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Thanks
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