Meet the owners behind some of Adelaide’s best restaurants, cafes and bars
Josh Baker is spending his Saturday darting from one side of Leigh St to another.
On one side: Coffee Branch. On weekdays, it’s the cafe with the blaring music and lines out the door. Today, it’s silent and Baker is giving the place a good dusting, a task he admits to having neglected of late.
On the other: Pink Moon Saloon. Number four of Baker’s five venues, due to open on November 26. It’s not long until the opening day and there’s still much to do. Cleaning, mostly. Baker and two of his co-owners Marshall King and Crispian Fielke, have been clearing out the basement over the past few months and today they’re onto skip number five.
Preparing to open a new venue, while maintaining the ones already standing, is a hectic whirl of meetings, phone calls and problem-solving.
“The other night I got a call around 9pm that a funny smell was coming from the building, so I went to Bunnings, got the suit, gas mask and gloves and went over to work it out,” Baker says.
“I like to think of myself as calm and passive but I stress out when my phone rings … just because it rings so much.”
New venues are popping up in the city all the time because of people like Baker. The man with the Midas touch has been instrumental in bringing life to Leigh and Peel streets. After years of working at his dad Anthony’s Combi coffee van — funnily enough Anthony is opening Combi on Leigh St this month — he opened his first cafe, Coffee Branch, in 2011 with business partner Aaron Martin.
“Coffee Branch was about me branching away from my dad basically, because he was in the takeaway coffee scene with Combi coffee and he said, ‘isn’t it time you create your own brand?,” Baker says.
“From day one Coffee Branch, the name itself sort of leaned towards that we were gonna franchise but I’ve never intended that … you go to Melbourne and there’s 10 or 15 venues all owned by same people but all different themes, different vibes, and that’s what I wanted to do.”
Two years later came small bar Clever Little Tailor. Not one for social media hype — “it’s not my thing, I’m not good at it and my pet hate is to look on Instagram and see photos of coffee” — Baker spread the word by telling all his regular customers about his plan for Peel St.
Regent Arcade cafe Larry & Ladd, which he owns with Jeremy Downey, was about creating a buzz in the arcade and proving to himself that he could design a place from scratch.
Now, with a handful of partners including Dana Whyte and Matthew Standen, he’s turning disused bin storage laneway into Pink Moon Saloon and in February, will open cafe Whistle & Flute on Greenhill Rd.
Baker says Adelaide is the best city in which to start a business.
“It’s got to the point where there’s so much opportunity and the co-operation from government and council in activating spaces has made it possible so that whatever your wildest dreams are, I think you can actually achieve them,” he says.
“If you can make a business here work, you can make it work anywhere in the world I think because we’re just picky and we know what we like and we’re not afraid to say when we don’t.”
Success, Baker believes, comes from working with devoted people and keeping staff in the loop with regular specialised training.
It also comes from passion. Baker still gets a buzz when a customer praises his coffee, or when he’s on a plane and the in-flight magazine has a glowing review about one of his venues.
It’s why he’s driven to keep creating new hangouts for his hometown.
“I’m an idiot, so I’ll open more,” he quips.
Baker is not the only one with multiple venues to his name. There’s restaurateur Simon Kardachi, who owns Press*, Bread & Bone, Proof, Melt, Maybe Mae and Osteria Oggi, and Walter Ventura, who is behind Mexican Society, United Latino Cocina, Cliché Exhibition, Tony Tomatoes, Ruby Red Flamingo and Frewville’s Hispanic Mechanic, among others.
The man of many ventures prefers to let his venues do the talking, but says his business strategy is simply about working with good people.
“I just find nice, hardworking and intelligent people and partner up with them, that’s it,” he says.
“It’s no more complicated than that.”
It’s the strong partnerships behind the scenes that bring these venues to life — partnerships such as the one between Peter De Marco and Phillip Tropeano. Best buddies since childhood, they’re the guys behind Pizza e Mozzarella Bar, Borsa Pasta Cucina and Chicken & Pig. Tropeano also owns Sosta Argentinian Kitchen while DeMarco has Zucca at Glenelg.
De Marco has a strict calendar. Monday is devoted to Borsa, Tuesday is Pizza e Mozzarella, Wednesday and Thursday he’s on the floor at Zucca and Friday he floats around wherever he’s needed.
It sounds full-on but with most of the restaurants devoted to lunchtime trade, it’s easier for the father of three to manage in comparison to his head chef years.
“I was working up to 50 hours a week and could see myself burning out so I just started investing and setting up my businesses so I could step back more and I’m glad I’ve done this because I can live a balanced life now, I can still do 15 hours in the kitchen but I can enjoy those 15 hours,” he says. “It becomes easier rather than harder when you manage more places.”
De Marco says when he opens a restaurant, he wants to do one thing and do it properly. Borsa, for example, is about traditionally cooked pasta. No tongs are used, and fresh spaghetti is made with one egg just like the Italians did years ago when money was tight. Pizza e Mozzarella bar is about thin, Italian-style pizza cooked in custom-built ovens. Chicken & Pig is about slow-cooked meats and roast vegetable salads.
“I try not to reinvent something, but to give people an experience they can’t get anywhere — we want to specialise in things rather than set trends,” De Marco says.
For De Marco, that’s where success comes from. That, and working with good people with like-minded goals.
And De Marco always has a goal.
“That’s when I have the most fun, when it’s time for the next project and I think, how far can we take this? I’m already thinking about the next thing.”
Source: Adelaide Now, Sophie Perri, 12th November 2015
Originally published as: Meet the owners behind some of Adelaide’s best restaurants, cafes and bars
