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How many restaurants do you currently have at the moment? Twelve. That was a period of my life, age of 16 to 25, nine, ten years, where it was just all work, no play, just focus and just grinding. I had to be responsible at a very young age. When I had the three venues,
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George's going Massimo and Rico. Eight months, we all got hit with COVID. I thought, you know, the world was over. All my eggs in one basket. I think it was like six months or seven months after the opening of Opa, I got hit with the floods. Opa and Massimo, the water goes pretty much very close to the ceiling. A week after that, I got hit with a demo clause. Basically in my mind, I had zero restaurants in a really, really bad place, like super bad. They were trying to get my lease behind my back.
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How do I come back 10 times stronger? Trust people around you. Started creating a team around me. But look, at the start, I had to wear a thousand hats. I always believe if you do the right thing, be a good human being, help people along the journey. Don't be greedy, help people. Things will always work out. In hard times, things do come quite cheap. For those who take the opportunity.
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Welcome everyone to the first episode of Johnny's podcast. The name of the podcast is actually a work in progress. So hopefully I'll come back with something brilliant and be able to share with you all. The purpose of this podcast is to be able to share some of the great success stories of my closest friends, our clients at Solomon's, as well as people that have gone through the
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or sometimes the family intricacies. So this is the first episode. So without further ado, I do have a very special guest.
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He's been an amazing friend to me personally, as well as a great support of the business and a trusted contact. And someone that I admire deeply for his tenacity, for the work, that ethics that he put in. And he truly understands and appreciates. Probably the most humble person, I think, that I can say that I know in my circle of trust.
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So I have a special guest, Michael Tassus, who currently is the owner and the director, managing director of Tassus Group, the most amazing food venture in Brisbane. We just had a lovely lunch at FACAL. Thank you, Johnny. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on your first podcast. And I really do appreciate being here with you. And thank you for the kind words as well. No, not a problem. No, I think...
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It helped certainly to have a good conversation with you before we came to this. But we almost talk, I think, almost every weekly. A few times a week. But, you know, I think we share a very good sort of mutual values of things and the stories that we've shared along the journey and along our sort of path of growth in our businesses, it also inspired me quite a lot along the journey. And I wanted people...
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who's, you know, broader circle than our closest circle, to be able to hear that, I think, directly from you. And, you know, we were just talking about, joking about, you know, you just mentioned previously, and perhaps a good segue to get in is, you know, we talked about when we were young and having a great time in our younger days, but, you know, you were just saying before that, you know, you didn't really get to enjoy much of that time early on because you're working so hard.
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I missed out a lot. There was a period in my life when we caught up, I was mentioning that there was a gap where from probably the age of 16 to 25, 9, 10 years, where it was just all work, no play, just focus and just grinding.
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So walk me through that process because I think there is always a perception that people may see success of where you are today. How many restaurants do you currently have at the moment? Twelve under the Tassus Group umbrella. Tassus Group, that's all in Brisbane. And it's still growing.
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Yeah, still growing. Hopefully a few miles on the way. Very exciting. But they see that successful side, but they don't understand sort of where you've come from. So perhaps if you can maybe start sharing some stories about your early days. You know, how old were you when you first started working? Where were you? Moved from Sydney to the Gold Coast for my father's first opportunity for a restaurant, a seafood restaurant. It was called Paragon Seafood.
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in 1988. So we moved from Sydney to Gold Coast. And that's basically where the journey started. But I was eight years old. I had to, coming from a kind of Greek background family,
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After school, you're there, weekends. I was buttering garlic bread and doing odd jobs. But probably where it really kick-started was when I was 12. My father was very successful in his first restaurant, and he went on and opened the iconic George's Paragon at Century Cove. Favourite restaurant. Yes. A lot of people do like it. Yes, still. So age of 12, after school.
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hours, you know, weekends, yeah, just focusing, you know, helping was really just helping the family business to start off with. And I found my passion. I was a kitchen hand to start with. So I was doing kitchen hand work, you know, pots and pans, washing dishes, you know, the fun stuff. And I did really enjoy it.
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the atmosphere of being in the kitchen. And then I kind of grew into, there was a section on the weekends cause it was so busy. And my father put on this lobster special called the whole lobster morning special. Oh yes. And they couldn't keep up with the numbers. So they made a special section for on the, especially on the weekends for lobster morning. So I was the lobster morning chef. Yeah.
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So they created that position just for me. I actually found so much love and passion in cooking, and that kind of was my first step into my journey as a cook. And probably the hardest thing was, to be honest with you, was cooking.
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going to school, doing so many hours from school, then going to work afterwards. So there was not much study in between, but mostly just working. So I remember the teacher came up to me once because I was falling asleep in class, and she goes, Michael, is everything okay at home? I'm like, yeah. I can never send child protective service. Yeah.
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So, no, but look, I really enjoyed. And then, you know, fast track to say, you know, I was, you know, when I was, you know, 13, 14, I was learning different sections in the kitchen. And I really, really loved, you know, learning is number one. But having, you know, good people in the kitchen, working together as a team environment, I really enjoyed that. It kind of inspired me. So when I was 15, I kind of...
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Family needed help as well in the business. I didn't really like school too much either, so I finished my grade 10 and then went straight into apprenticeship. I did my apprenticeship as a chef, learned all aspects of the kitchen,
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And luckily, my father as well, you know, he, like at the start, I didn't want to do it. He actually said, Michael, I want you to learn the front of house. I said, dad, I just love the kitchen. I just want to stay in the kitchen. I just love it so much. He goes, no, I want you to start learning the front of house. So he kind of pushed me and he saw something in me. So he pushed me forward to learn, you know, the craft of, you know, service and the real meaning of hospitality. Yeah.
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And, yeah, I started enjoying, you know, dealing with people, you know, front of house staff. So then I started learning over the years all aspects of hospitality from bar to, you know, to cashiering to doing a section, section waitering and then managing people. So, and the good, you know, it was funny because...
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Going back into the kitchen, I was in charge actually of the purchasing as well. And I'll tell you a funny story where when I was doing the purchasing, like all the – so I'd get in early in the morning, like 6 o'clock in the morning. I have to – it was a bit old school. Get on the phone, start calling the seafood mongers and the seafood suppliers and start negotiating prices. So the prices of fresh fish wasn't set.
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So you always be ringing to negotiate price. And I remember this one supplier, he goes, Michael, how old are you? And I said, 21. He said, you don't sound 21. I was 16 at the time. So it sounded a lot more mature then. Yeah, so look, I appreciate that kind of,
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upbringing and having that opportunity to learn at a very young age. And I had to be responsible at a very young age. And that kind of, you know, I was grateful for my father to give me that opportunity. But then we started opening more restaurants and cafes for the Tassus, for my dad, for the family.
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And, uh, so then, yeah, so my brother, my older brother, Damon and I were basically, you know, running, you know, uh, a lot of the, a lot of the venues and we're opening a few venues as well over the years. And, um, yeah, that's basically kind of how it all started at a young age.
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Well, that's quite inspiring, actually, because as, you know, also being the migrant myself, I've also gone through a similar thing where, you know, I think I told you my first job was age of 15, being a Woolworths checkout chick. I was pretty good at that job, actually, in Surfers Paradise. And, you know, we call it a tough love, but I think it's really what...
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set the foundation for us early on. I think that we sometimes take that for granted. A lot of people might not see that side, obviously. At the time, your mind's somewhere different, but later on in life, you definitely do appreciate
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you're kind of laying a foundation of hard work and, you know, and understanding. But yeah, looking back now, it was like, it was basically my university degree, you know, into hospitality. Yeah, right. That's probably better than university degrees, I'll say. Yeah, it's true. You know, I've seen many people who graduate in hospitality, including my wife, actually.
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Hotel management, I should say. But no, that's amazing. And I think I was your loyal customer at your first venue in Eagle Street in Brisbane, CBD. And we met early on. I think this is going back almost 12 years or more. Now, from learning from that and expansion of business
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you know, family business and supporting your father, you know, you obviously sort of branch out of that. It wasn't a comfort zone, but I guess branch out of that to start something there. Walk me through that if you don't mind. Yeah, definitely.
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So basically when my wife and I got married, um, was in 2009, uh, you know, working for the family, it's, um, you know, it has, it's, it's challenges and to, to, to go further in life as well, uh, cause you want to create your own family. You have to kind of step outside this circle sometimes. Um, and, um,
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I was lucky enough, I wanted to, because my wife, Lila, she's a Brisbane girl, and we wanted to open a venue in Brisbane. And we're deciding what concept, what name, but we thought to bring the brand George's up to Brisbane. We thought that was a great idea, and I was looking, it took me probably a year and a
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find their location. I went to multiple operators, sorry, landlords, and it was quite challenging to find the right location. And then, luckily enough, at the time, it was Stocklands. He owned Eagle Street Pier
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And, you know, the opportunity was there. And I took it with two hands straight away. I knew. I started doing my research. There was only two venues at the time that were doing extremely well. And they were pretty busy all the time. So I thought this is a no-brainer. So I opened – so that was, I think, yeah, El Centro and Cha-Cha was there already. Yep. Yep.
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And I knew, and they were a busy lunch and dinner. So I thought, yep, no brainer. So I moved forward, went aggressive and, you know, signed the lease. And, you know, great learnings from that first lease because that was foundation of understanding business.
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throughout my, you know, when I did open more restaurants to understand, make sure you get your lease perfectly done. And, you know, if you don't have understanding about leases, then really speak to like a great lawyer who knows about leases. But anyways, a perfect spot. Um,
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The funny thing is, actually, I'll tell you, no one really knows this. So it was – the spot I took was above – I think it was Aria. Yeah, so above Aria and then at the time –
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It was, was the old rugby club and, um, it had good bones, uh, but the landlords, uh, thought, uh, I would, uh, you know, do a full renovation, spend millions. I say, yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll make sure it's all looking good.
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But I only had a little bit of money, you know, so I had to take a bank loan. And basically I kept pretty much all the bones in the restaurant and pretty much just new carpet, paint job, a few little things. And when the landlords first saw the restaurant and the renovations, they weren't too impressed with me.
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But the thing is after, you know, the first few years and the amount of people coming through from, you know, through the venue, they were like, like really impressed with the numbers and the turnover that we were doing. I would say that was probably the busiest restaurant at that time. You know,
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Our peak was in 2015, 2016, where we were doing probably about 5,000 covers a week. Wow. You know, on the staff level, we had around about 100 staff. In that venue? In that venue. Wow. So, yeah, it was queues. It was always full. I remember lighting up all the time. The famous whole soul. The whole soul. That's my favorite thing.
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But yeah, look, it was great learnings and for my first business, because I knew everything about the back of house, the front of house, but I didn't get trained in the financial business side.
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And, you know, one thing, you know, starting a business and you don't know about the financial side is, I said to actually to Lila, we just make sure that... Lila's your wife. Lila's my wife, yes. So until we...
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understand the financial side. We're just going to, you know, have the bare minimum for wage and just expenses. So I think we're, I think it was like $400 or something we were talking and we moved to the city. So we're paying rent in one of the high rise because we had to work, you know, long hours, seven days from, you know, first one in last one out. So we'd get there eight in the morning and then we'll leave one or two in the morning.
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So we needed somewhere to be close. So look, we just wanted to, you know, make sure the first few years that we understood the financial side. And that was great learnings for us as well. So, yeah, so then from that moment...
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uh you know we we focused on that business and you know did did a few tweaks on on its on it you know along the journey and um and 2018-19 i i opened my second venue
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Okay. Now, before we get into the second venue, obviously, your George's, that was the place, like I said, given that I was a developing professional in the early days. What would you say?
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you know, that differentiated George's with so much competition around you from a high-end restaurant to, you know, really, you know, Cha Cha Cha was a, you know, signature steakhouse and, you know, especially by the river, it's a beautiful location. You know, why do you think that, you know, why do you think people lined up for the third?
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Look, I think especially that time when we kind of hit the market, it was definitely a point of difference. A friend of mine actually said to me, oh, Michael, you know, I'll never forget, he said to Michael, it was a pretty bad decision going to that precinct and you've got all high-end restaurants. I said, no, no, because what we're doing is we're going in there with good food, excellent service,
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we're still delivering good food and we're still delivering, you know, the service or better. But it's at a really good price point. And I think if you, you know, I saw, I saw a few people actually as well, cause it was half price. Cause we did a famous half price lunch back then. So half price lunch. And then in the evening,
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if you book and see between 5.30 and 6.30, you get the half price menu. It's funny, sometimes they'll bring clients and they'll say, hey, Michael, can you just, because I'm shouting to the clients, just bring out the dinner menu. That was me.
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But look, I think people appreciate if they're going to – it doesn't matter about the price point or if you're going to give good value. And look, we had sort of menu items on there which lifted the price up as well. But 70% on that timeframe was 50% off entrees and mains. So it was good value. But then we had live seafood, which –
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Your ticket price goes up from over $200. But if you kind of make sure that whatever the guest is spending from $50 to $100 and you're giving great value and you're nailing it with good food and service, they're going to love you and keep coming back. And we had clients, guests, I'd see them three, four times a week in that venue or maybe more because sometimes it was actually, you couldn't buy that.
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product really and cook it at home for the price that you're getting inside the restaurant, getting cooked and served. Whole soul, my favorite. And having that view as well. The view was magic. It's great. And I literally saw from the early days of your restaurant when it had the hideous blue carpets.
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So I had to do things a bit. And then I thought, oh, the chairs have changed. Oh, the tables changed. So obviously you've reinvested. So no, I reinvested straight away because I knew, you know, this was the budget I only had at the start. And I knew I had to keep up with demand and, you know, and the surrounding restaurants, which they had more, you know, you know,
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money than me at the time. So I had to reinvest pretty quick. So every time I made a little bit, I put back in, I'll change things and reinvest, reinvest to get to a stage where, you know, it was a very, it wasn't, they were coming for the, you know, the good food, the good service, but then they were coming for the atmosphere as well.
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Good talking about reinvesting. Obviously, as you have reinvested everything you've earned back into the business, the second part of the opportunity came and that's expansion, right, for you. So before you expand and you commit into bigger venture, you know, I know this for myself because I've grown my business to where it is now, you know, committing to that larger lease, you're signing your name against it.
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And then you know that you could be personally liable for this if it doesn't make it. You know, like obviously you've opened a couple more restaurants in either area. Walk me through that thought process that you've had and that additional bit of courage that backed you up to make those executions to expand.
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Look, at the time I had a lot of years of experience behind me, number one. I, you know, I learned from a lot of great people. Um, so that really gave me the courage when I was learning. And then when I opened the first venue.
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it gave me another level of courage to go and open the next venue. So, uh, I got approached, um, by a leasing agent, uh, down the river, the riverside where Massimo is. So then the next venue was Massimo. So, uh, the tenant, uh, who, uh, uh, you know, unfortunately, you know, they, they, they left, uh, it was, uh, was called Groove Train. Um,
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And so I took that spot. It was probably the worst position at that time because it was at the end of the dining precinct and it was at the end of the last bit of the dining on the river. And I thought, you know what, if you're going to give –
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Great food, great service. And I had to take that leap, what you're saying, because the fit out, I had to spend the money this time on the fit out. So I had to go to designers. So it was my first stage of really –
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approaching designers, you know, getting three builders, negotiating, you know, with the prices, understanding, having that, you know, making that call where, you know, this builder is going to be good for the job. Because actually the first restaurant I did a lot of things, even myself, like with friends,
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So this time I had to actually just go to a proper builder and do things, you know, properly, you know, for the landlord to lease and everything. So, um, yeah,
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Yeah, so look, I took the loan and my wife goes, are you sure? I said, look, I wanted to open an Italian restaurant. So I was very passionate, always loved Italian food. And I thought, you know, I've always, you know, like as a young kid as well, you know, I loved that, you know, making fresh pasta, you know, fresh produce. And yeah, I just wanted to do – and the name, it took me a while to come up with Massimo.
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What does it mean? Actually, I've asked that question.
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Look, it means like maximum flavor, you know, everything, you know, to the best, basically. Like Bellissimo, you know. Yeah, I think, yeah. So, look, it's after, you know, the chef's name, like, you know, people's names as well. A famous chef is called Massimo. So I thought, yeah, no brainer and, you know, it rolls off to the tongue well. It's kind of easy to remember as well, the name. So, yeah, just I – and from pretty much, you know, the learnings from opening the shop –
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going through that build stage and then opening the doors, it was actually a really nice feeling, you know, compared to say George's. Brand new brand, you know, I put everything into it. It's very passionate about that project and it took off from day one. Wow.
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And, yeah, I couldn't believe it. Look, every restaurant, every venue I've opened,
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you know, I always take learnings from each one. So I get better as I go, because I go, I've learned something from here, I've learned something from there. But I've learned, you know, a lot of the foundation actually came from my learnings from George's because of the high volume that you need to do. So a lot of restaurants will never do that volume. But it makes you understand how to, you know, run, you know, different cost structures, you know,
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rostering on different times so the business side of things actually gave me values for my future venues. That's amazing well you know I think from then onwards I know you've sort of gone through and
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and expand it even further from the lessons you've learned and, and you've sort of haven't stopped since essentially you've always opened kind of new restaurant almost every year, maybe except the COVID period, but we'll go through that in a, in a second. And, you know, then obviously an opportunity where the spot, the Aria used to be down below from George's you've opened up the Rico's, which was the Spanish bar. And yeah, tell me about that present a little bit and then before we sort of go. Yeah, sure. So yeah,
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The landlords, so from Stocklands, they went to Texas. Texas saw my success from Massimo, and they wanted me to take over the area location. For me, it was a no-brainer because I know the area well. I always had some love, you know, always felt passionate about Spanish food.
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And I had this concept in my mind and basically how Rico was born. So, you know, we did, you know, went through kind of like a name generation of like what names are going to be. I had like five different names and Rico just felt to me, you know, it was a powerful, had great energy. And yeah, so...
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Open Rico's kind of actually used the same builders as Massimo. Got a great relationship with them. And so I used the same builders and the same designers. And I've been using the same designers actually all the way through now. But yeah, so the good thing about the Aria spot, the bones were already there. Yeah.
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And, you know, we had to spend a bit of money on the venue, of course, to bring it to life. And I think I was looking, I was looking, I was talking with the landlords, Texas. And the reason why I don't think it worked so well, what kind of, Aria was a fantastic business. Yeah.
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And it got to a stage where I think being in Queensland, they like activation. So I thought when I did open Rico's, I would open the venue up and activate the bar area. So I created this outside area pretty much out of nothing.
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We had a beautiful dining room. Yes. And then we had this massive kind of bar area inside and outside, and it was heaving. From day one, it just exploded. It took off like a rocket. And, look, Rico's is not there at the moment. Hopefully we'll relocate that brand soon. Yeah.
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But it was, I think if anyone who went to Rico's, you know, have great stories. Yep. And they've got great memories as well from that time. I agree. It was a fun place where you can go and have little bits of everything. And the Bairla was fantastic. And I sense a bit of that familiarity of that Bairla actually at the Mugavilles actually. So it's actually quite a nice one.
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So it's continuing to sort of expand from there. And I see you every time you also decide to open another restaurant, you go through almost exactly, probably if not more, same stress as you do them. And I see you – because I think it's important to you. And people will be wondering –
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you know, what's behind the driving force of you to just, you know, now, you know, obviously fast forwarding and, you know, into where we are now, you know, you've built a successful empire, hospitality empire, and everyone comes up to you and be like, if they ask you, what do you do? You say a restaurant business, you know, you tell me that half the people time, they're like, so difficult, you know what I mean? And it's true, right? It's like the most difficult business in the world to be successful in. You have to have,
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passion for hospitality. If you don't have any passion for hospitality, don't get into the business. It's all about passion. But look, at the start, I had to wear a thousand hats. And then when the restaurants grew into what it is now, I started slowly taking off one hat at a time.
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But, you know, it's only the last kind of, I'd say, maybe year and a half, two years, maybe max, where things have got a little bit easier for me. I started creating a team around me. That's all about my team. So I've got a staff. I've got a member of my team where he's actually when I was a head chef for my family's business, you know, he was my apprentice chef. Yeah.
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So Dan, Daniel, he's the head chef at Massimo. He's been with me, I'd say I've been working along with him maybe 28, 28 years or 27 years, something, something like that high. But a lot of my key members have been with me 20 years, 15 years, eight years, you know, so it's, um, those people around me have made the foundations and helped me grow the business. So we kind of grow, grow together.
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Yeah, that's amazing. And I do know, and there's something, one thing I really love about you is that, you know, you tend to trust people around you really, and then, you know, your trust is very unshakable oftentimes, and that's the thing that you do. Well, my wife says to me, I trust too many people too easily. I don't think so, but, you know, I think that's good, you know. I can't help it. You have trusted people and team around you, and, you know, obviously...
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Even for me, when I run business and when I'm always forefront of trying to think about what's next, what's next, you know, you often tend to forget about yourself. Yes. You know, and, you know, no doubt you've gone through the same, you know. A hundred percent. Is there like a methodology that you use along the journey to better yourself? And what was that drive behind putting more effort in bettering yourself, if that makes sense?
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Look, at the start, it was quite hard. I was wearing a thousand hats. So growing the business, it was very challenging where I was in the business seven days. There was no weekends. There was no coming home early. My personal life as well had its moments. But luckily, I have a strong wife at home. So she understood the vision. Yeah.
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But it's hard at times, but it's when, when you, when you're growing, it's like growing pains. So you have to wait for that right moment where you can kind of execute, you know, another staff member to like allocate another position might cost you a bit of money at the start, but hopefully it works out. So
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Making that call by adding a new position in to take off that hat is kind of crucial. But, you know, the timing has to be right, especially in hospitality. The margins are super tiny, you know.
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You have to make sure that when you do grow, you know, make sure that you, you know, kind of do everything at the start and then slowly let things go and delegate your work to the right person, you know what I mean, and trusting them. And don't be on top of them so much. Let them ride it.
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pull them up if they're doing something wrong and learn from each other. But a lot of the guys actually around me, and I put into those positions as well, I've learned a lot from. So there's kind of that give and take as well. So, yeah. That's amazing.
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I think, me included, I think I can call myself quite a blessed individual because I have in my business people that I can walk in and be proud that I can actually learn something from my team members. And sometimes I think, you know, and that's actually quite rare in business leaders.
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at times, and this is I think what makes you definitely more special, is that our humbleness comes from perhaps your faith, perhaps with how you've grown up along the corners. So every time you did find any difficulties in life and maybe in most challenging moments,
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that you had to endure, you know, is that something that really brought you back out to the, to the normal version of sell, where as a business leader, you still have to give energy, you know, it's like continuous giving. Like, so what was that thing that really pulled you forward? I've, I've, I think the foundation of, um, cause I'm Orthodox background. So I believe in Jesus and I'm a Jesus, um, you know, true and true. And, uh, you know, I think, uh,
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There was moments in my life where, to be honest with you, I tested the model and I got a backslap and I realised, you know what, this is the path I have to stick to my faith and go forward. But if you keep pushing, keep going forward, you're always going to go through challenging moments. But I always believe if you do the right thing, be a good human being,
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Don't be greedy, help people. Things will always work out, but always keep pushing forward. You know what I mean? And the biggest key thing as well would be I always try to improve something every day in my business, something small because it's like compounding. Eventually, you know, in 30 days it's just going to get better. But if you leave things and if you're lazy, you know, it's not going to work out that well.
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Very good point. I think 1% better than yesterday is something we all try to aim for. And if you do that, you know, wealth management, we call it the wonder of the seventh wonder of the world is compounding interest and compounding returns. So obviously, you're a living proof of that. The compounding on leases, you know.
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I had to digest. That's true. I still have to try and get out of that one. That's true. But you've been making great success along the journey. So now, no doubt at one point in your lifetime, we talked about difficult times and what helps you to sort of steer forward of those times.
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you would have had to challenge one of the biggest difficulties in your life, you know, whilst you're running this empire and keep committing yourself to those least commitments, you know, what was it and how did you sort of endure that part during, you know, what was the most difficult part in this whole journey? If you were to name that one event.
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Look, when I had the three venues, I had George's going, Massimo and Rico, I got just, I think about...
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eight months after I got hit with, we all got hit with COVID. And I thought, you know, the world was over, you know, what have I done? I put, you know, all my eggs in one basket. I could see, you know, the look on my wife's face as well. So there was a lot of things going through my mind at that point, but then opportunities come in, in kind of bad times. So,
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I took, you know, the leap and I, you know, the landlords kind of saw what I've, you know, the same landlord, Dexas, saw what I created. They gave me an opportunity to do another restaurant throughout COVID. And, you know, in hard times, things do come quite cheap.
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Definitely, yes. For those who take the opportunity during the hardest time, tend to make it too, by the way. And to be honest with you, I love learning. If I can learn, for me, it's better than money. So I had the opportunity to do a steakhouse. So I created Fat Cow. The first Fat Cow was Fat Cow Steak and Lobster.
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And pretty much at the same time of that agreement, my other landlord, where I had Massimo, gave me the opportunity to take over. A restaurant was closing down. And that's when I opened up Oppa. Mm-hmm.
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So with Fat Cow, I always wanted to learn and I thought Steakhouse was, you know, I've never done Steakhouse before. So there was a lot of research involved and luckily I had a great team as well behind me. It's always a team as well, which is the foundations. And when I opened Fat Cow, it was very, very successful. Very, very successful. I didn't realise...
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you know, cause it was through that COVID time as well. Uh, I thought, oh yeah, it'd be busy, but won't, you know, won't be overly busy. And we were pumped and we opened, we opened that venue, which is the worst thing in the hospitality. You never want to open a restaurant around November, December. We opened, I think it was like December, the 26th of December, 27th of December at the end of December. Mm.
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And anyone who knows Brisbane City that well back in those days, now it's a bit different. You know, after December, January goes dead. Everyone goes on holidays. Everyone goes to the coast or up north to the Sunshine Coast. So the city goes dead. But, yeah, look, we were super busy. That was, you know, great learnings from that venue. And pretty much a few, three, four months after the Fat Cow opening,
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I straightaway opened Oppa. And for me, that was a passion project because… Your cultural background. Your cultural background. And I wanted to really open the best Greek restaurant, authentic Greek restaurant in Brisbane. And lucky for us and the team, it was a very successful opening. It was huge. Yeah.
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I'm coming to your point where most challenging. I was going to say that this is why you're so successful because you tend to focus on the positive, not the negative. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. So everything was all in the high, yeah? Yeah, all in the high. Everything was going super well, even through COVID. Yeah.
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And then two things happened to me. One, I think it was like six months or seven months after the opening of Opa, I got hit with the floods. I think it was 2000, I can't remember now, 2022, I think it was, or 21 floods.
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All the real fronts. Business was going well. Everything was under high. And then the floods happened. Oppa and Massimo, the water goes pretty much very close to the ceiling. Underwater.
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devastating. I was like, oh my God, you know, here we go. And then, uh, a week after that, I got hit with a demo clause. So the three restaurants I had at time at Waterfront, Demolition Clause. So I had Fat Cow, George's, uh, Enrico had six months to vacate.
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For the development project. For the development, yes, which is a beautiful project. So I had, basically in my mind, I had zero restaurants. Maspo Opera, you know, is in the sea, in the river.
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And then I got six months to close the other restaurants. So I got six months to open. If I wanted to go back in, I got six months to open the other two venues. So, and I'm thinking to myself, one, you know, I've got all this stuff. Like what am I going to do with all this stuff?
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And, you know, a few things went through my mind and I was, you know, I was actually in a really, really bad place, like super bad, probably my lowest point, you know, in. And again, you know, luckily, you know, I had, you know, my faith, what, you know, kept me strong in those very dark times. And I said to Lila, my wife, I said, I don't know, I think –
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maybe we should just, you know, go to a different direction. Maybe we, you know, I was thinking to move to Greece. A lot of things was going through my mind. And I, you know, I knew I had a lot of staff, you know, I had team members with me for a long time, worked very hard. So I couldn't let them down. Plus,
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I also remember someone saying to me, which I won't mention too much, after a week of the venues going in the floods, they were trying to get my lease behind my back.
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So I was like, double whammy. Double whammy. Yeah. So like I said to myself, like, how do I come back 10 times stronger? What can I do to, you know, everyone's thinking to myself, like, you know, what whispers saying is finished, is gone, is over.
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And I'm thinking to myself, how do I come back 10 times stronger? So, you know, I've got, you know, made sure that we opened the, you know, before the three venues were closed down, we opened Massimo and Oppa straight away, back up. And, um, a friend of mine found me an opportunity in, uh, West Village, which is a beautiful dining precinct in West End. Mm-hmm.
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And he said, oh, Michael, look, I've got an opportunity for you to open a restaurant in West End. And I thought, look, I need to get another venue straight away because I don't want to lose my staff and I want to try and help. Then I'll have, from going from five venues, at least I have three venues that can kind of work it out.
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So, you know, and I said to his name is Julian. So is, is one of the best leasing agents in Brisbane. And I said to him, look, I don't really, I'm not a big fan of West End. You know, I always stayed in the city. I love the city. I know the city.
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He goes, no, no, come, come, come check it out. And West End back those days, you know, it was, you know. A bit more rougher. A little bit rough, yeah. So when he took me through the precinct, though, I fell in love. So it was like the old and new. I was just, I knew straight away. I said, yep, sign me up straight away. Boom. So then I...
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So I opened up our next venue called Yamas, which is a Greek, it's like a sister restaurant from Oppa. But to be honest with you, that point of my life there was extremely, extremely, extremely
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challenging and difficult through personal, through my health. I gained a lot of weight. I was smoking. I was always off and on with the cigarettes as well. I was actually drinking a little bit heavy as well. I don't drink anything anymore. I don't smoke. I'm very healthy now. But my mind was very...
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you know, all over the, all over the place because I was working seven days, you know, things, you know, money, uh, you know, finance, uh, you know, I've got three, three kids, three beautiful kids as well, family. So I was just like trying to work out, you know, so there's a lot of, uh, moving parts at that time. So yeah, that's, that would be my, one of my most challenging moments. Yeah. In business.
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That's amazing, Michael. And quite inspiring, to be honest, because I don't think not too many people would have chosen to sign up on other leads at the worst point of their life, knowing, you know, what to do. Yeah, look, at that point, though,
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I thought I had the team behind me, I've had the experience, but there was a little bit of unlucky situations. So things were what happened to me at that moment. It wasn't my doing. It was just, you know, it just happened and it was just a little bit unlucky.
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But I kind of knew, you know, I backed myself because I knew that I can do it. I mean, I've got the team, you know, I've got the processes, you know. I know I'm passionate about hospitality, even though it's very hard work. I would say a little bit unlucky is certainly an understatement of funny.
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you've gone through uh from you know zero to where you are i think almost zero to where you are is actually quite a remarkable story um so you know i think uh many people will find that very very inspiring um now you know fast forward now obviously you got you know beautiful restaurants even in the west end you've got rich and rare which is you know beautiful steakhouse um and you know you got aunties now just opening up uh in you know behind recently and and again a
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you know, amazing success that you're having at the moment. Yeah, we've got beautiful, beautiful steakhouses, rich and rare, fat cow, you know, very famous kind of steakhouses. We're lucky enough to get into the kind of Asian cuisine with Long Wang and Nancy just recently opened and taken off like a rocket.
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And I can assure you that it's Asian approved, by the way. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. And going through things like the tender of the Green Bridge. So for me, that was quite rewarding when 300 people went through the tender. It was a long process, a huge process from a certain number of people went down to the top three.
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We got chosen and just having that iconic, you know, restaurant on the bridge, you know, for, you know, for me that was quite special, you know, because I was like, kind of brought me back from my, to my original restaurant where George's was, because it's kind of very similar views and it's not that far away as well. And, you know, just giving back, I thought, you know, this is like for the Brisbane community as well. Yes. Yes.
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So me giving back and making sure to do the right thing and do a restaurant to do Brisbane proud as well. So, so we're lucky enough to have stilts on the bridge, Mogla Bills, which is a very busy kind of a cafe restaurant. And it goes from breakfast, uh, lunch and dinner. Very, very busy, 60 square meters, a little bit of outside space, but super busy. Um,
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And then, you know, Queens, Queens Wharf. Yes. So they, you know, they picked us to do two restaurants in the Queens Wharf, Pompette, which is a French restaurant, and Dark Shepherd, which is like a wood fire Mediterranean Greek inspired restaurant. And, you know, yeah.
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even going through that process was, you know, it was great learnings from, you know, going through the build, through going through unions. And that was my first kind of union building job. And I have to say, and I forgot to mention Foch as well. Yes. Portside. Yes. Portside there where that precinct at the time, everyone told me, Michael, do not go there. No one's going there. Hmm.
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Bad move, don't open a restaurant. And every time I was going there to Portside, there was no one. It was like a ghost town. You're right, yes. And I was like, but I knew the area well from back in the days. And I knew it had great bones and it was a great position, it was a great area. But it just needed a few good, better operators in there. Yeah.
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And now you look at it from day one when we opened Fosh, it exploded. It kind of surprised me. It was mayhem. I wasn't expecting that. So actually I wasn't even ready. So I did a lot of bad mistakes as well. Yeah, it's a long journey. So like the journey hasn't been perfect. No. But every single restaurant we've opened, we've kind of learned from and we've got better as we go as well.
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You know, and that's probably where I think the commonality of successful people come from is that they have, they understand and if you are humble enough to understand your mistakes and actually learn from it and then sort of apply for the next one, I think that's the secret to success. But I can also, you know, testify. I can also say that, you know,
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service and i think in these modern days of ai era and things like that the human touch and and everyone at your restaurant is you know they're fun they they know how to spark a good conversation bit of banter like queensland style you know what i mean so i think that's uh probably a key differentiator from a from a customer perspective that i could uh happily share no no i agree with you there and that's what we kind of in our kind of um you know our values when we when we bring
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We don't want to be stiff like front of house. We don't want to be – our focus is everyone's welcome, the doors are open, we're giving true hospitality. We're not just giving service, you know, here's your wine, top up the wine and pull the – you know. We're giving – when you come into the venue, we want you to feel welcome and that you – and you get recognised, you know,
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And, you know, and having the waiters having a bit of banner as well. But, you know, they'll, they know when to do it and when not to do it. But they'll, you know, we want, we encourage this. Yeah. I just had one in Fakal. It's a French waiter. Anthony. Yeah, Anthony. He's hilarious. That's right. That's right. So you always give me a couple of, a couple of pokes every time I'm there.
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but uh just you know just to wrap things up and i guess perhaps to just reflect on some of these learnings and and the life lessons you've learned and one of the biggest thing that we all want to do is and and very hard to do is is to talk about some of these stories that you've gone through because we simply don't often have these platforms but moreover um
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I feel like this could be for your children, this story, in the future as they grow up. I appreciate it as well. And I think it'll be a bit of a legacy sharing from your perspective. But if you were to perhaps tell your kids, who's probably old enough to watch this again, what would be that fatherly advice that you want to give them as just imagine they're watching this right now? Look, I think,
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Always, you know, be truthful. Always be honest. Be humble. Always do the right thing. Always try to give back when you can. And then, you know, in business, that will thrive through business, but also keep pushing forward. Don't look back. You know, if you do a mistake, just keep pushing forward and learn. Learn.
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And you'll achieve kind of greatness, you know, but, you know, also have, you know, have faith. Yeah. And, yeah, just be a good human being. It's amazing advice. I love the journey. That's amazing advice, but not just for your kids. I think that's amazing advice for everyone who's tuning in. Look.
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Really appreciate the time you spent with me. And, you know, I think we could have done this. And you're my first guest. So thank you. I appreciate it. And I feel privileged to actually be the first one. So thank you, Johnny. Thank you. And we look forward to, you know, hopefully bringing you back again on this platform eventually. And we actually at the restaurant have been talking about what we could name this podcast and things like that. But start of great things. Always got to start somewhere. We can go on a deeper dive.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'd love to do that. There's a lot of actually advice piece you can give, especially people who's aspiring to be, because the restaurant is a very hard business to run, as you know, and they'll love to pick their brain. So hopefully we can delve into further in the future. But once again, thank you very much. And thank you for those, everyone who's tuned in. You know, I hope you found that helpful and no doubt you've gone back with a couple of lessons to learn from. So yeah.
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Stay tuned. There'll be more of these episodes coming and we'll look forward to having you on again next episode. Thank you very much. Thanks, Johnny. Thank you, Michael.
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How many restaurants do you currently have at the moment? Twelve. That was a period of my life, age of 16 to 25, nine, ten years, where it was just all work, no play, just focus and just grinding. I had to be responsible at a very young age. When I had the three venues,
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George's going Massimo and Rico. Eight months, we all got hit with COVID. I thought, you know, the world was over. All my eggs in one basket. I think it was like six months or seven months after the opening of Opa, I got hit with the floods. Opa and Massimo, the water goes pretty much very close to the ceiling. A week after that, I got hit with a demo clause. Basically in my mind, I had zero restaurants in a really, really bad place, like super bad. They were trying to get my lease behind my back.
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How do I come back 10 times stronger? Trust people around you. Started creating a team around me. But look, at the start, I had to wear a thousand hats. I always believe if you do the right thing, be a good human being, help people along the journey. Don't be greedy, help people. Things will always work out. In hard times, things do come quite cheap. For those who take the opportunity.
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Welcome everyone to the first episode of Johnny's podcast. The name of the podcast is actually a work in progress. So hopefully I'll come back with something brilliant and be able to share with you all. The purpose of this podcast is to be able to share some of the great success stories of my closest friends, our clients at Solomon's, as well as people that have gone through the
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or sometimes the family intricacies. So this is the first episode. So without further ado, I do have a very special guest.
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He's been an amazing friend to me personally, as well as a great support of the business and a trusted contact. And someone that I admire deeply for his tenacity, for the work, that ethics that he put in. And he truly understands and appreciates. Probably the most humble person, I think, that I can say that I know in my circle of trust.
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So I have a special guest, Michael Tassus, who currently is the owner and the director, managing director of Tassus Group, the most amazing food venture in Brisbane. We just had a lovely lunch at FACAL. Thank you, Johnny. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on your first podcast. And I really do appreciate being here with you. And thank you for the kind words as well. No, not a problem. No, I think...
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It helped certainly to have a good conversation with you before we came to this. But we almost talk, I think, almost every weekly. A few times a week. But, you know, I think we share a very good sort of mutual values of things and the stories that we've shared along the journey and along our sort of path of growth in our businesses, it also inspired me quite a lot along the journey. And I wanted people...
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who's, you know, broader circle than our closest circle, to be able to hear that, I think, directly from you. And, you know, we were just talking about, joking about, you know, you just mentioned previously, and perhaps a good segue to get in is, you know, we talked about when we were young and having a great time in our younger days, but, you know, you were just saying before that, you know, you didn't really get to enjoy much of that time early on because you're working so hard.
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I missed out a lot. There was a period in my life when we caught up, I was mentioning that there was a gap where from probably the age of 16 to 25, 9, 10 years, where it was just all work, no play, just focus and just grinding.
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So walk me through that process because I think there is always a perception that people may see success of where you are today. How many restaurants do you currently have at the moment? Twelve under the Tassus Group umbrella. Tassus Group, that's all in Brisbane. And it's still growing.
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Yeah, still growing. Hopefully a few miles on the way. Very exciting. But they see that successful side, but they don't understand sort of where you've come from. So perhaps if you can maybe start sharing some stories about your early days. You know, how old were you when you first started working? Where were you? Moved from Sydney to the Gold Coast for my father's first opportunity for a restaurant, a seafood restaurant. It was called Paragon Seafood.
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in 1988. So we moved from Sydney to Gold Coast. And that's basically where the journey started. But I was eight years old. I had to, coming from a kind of Greek background family,
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After school, you're there, weekends. I was buttering garlic bread and doing odd jobs. But probably where it really kick-started was when I was 12. My father was very successful in his first restaurant, and he went on and opened the iconic George's Paragon at Century Cove. Favourite restaurant. Yes. A lot of people do like it. Yes, still. So age of 12, after school.
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hours, you know, weekends, yeah, just focusing, you know, helping was really just helping the family business to start off with. And I found my passion. I was a kitchen hand to start with. So I was doing kitchen hand work, you know, pots and pans, washing dishes, you know, the fun stuff. And I did really enjoy it.
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the atmosphere of being in the kitchen. And then I kind of grew into, there was a section on the weekends cause it was so busy. And my father put on this lobster special called the whole lobster morning special. Oh yes. And they couldn't keep up with the numbers. So they made a special section for on the, especially on the weekends for lobster morning. So I was the lobster morning chef. Yeah.
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So they created that position just for me. I actually found so much love and passion in cooking, and that kind of was my first step into my journey as a cook. And probably the hardest thing was, to be honest with you, was cooking.
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going to school, doing so many hours from school, then going to work afterwards. So there was not much study in between, but mostly just working. So I remember the teacher came up to me once because I was falling asleep in class, and she goes, Michael, is everything okay at home? I'm like, yeah. I can never send child protective service. Yeah.
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So, no, but look, I really enjoyed. And then, you know, fast track to say, you know, I was, you know, when I was, you know, 13, 14, I was learning different sections in the kitchen. And I really, really loved, you know, learning is number one. But having, you know, good people in the kitchen, working together as a team environment, I really enjoyed that. It kind of inspired me. So when I was 15, I kind of...
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Family needed help as well in the business. I didn't really like school too much either, so I finished my grade 10 and then went straight into apprenticeship. I did my apprenticeship as a chef, learned all aspects of the kitchen,
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And luckily, my father as well, you know, he, like at the start, I didn't want to do it. He actually said, Michael, I want you to learn the front of house. I said, dad, I just love the kitchen. I just want to stay in the kitchen. I just love it so much. He goes, no, I want you to start learning the front of house. So he kind of pushed me and he saw something in me. So he pushed me forward to learn, you know, the craft of, you know, service and the real meaning of hospitality. Yeah.
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And, yeah, I started enjoying, you know, dealing with people, you know, front of house staff. So then I started learning over the years all aspects of hospitality from bar to, you know, to cashiering to doing a section, section waitering and then managing people. So, and the good, you know, it was funny because...
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Going back into the kitchen, I was in charge actually of the purchasing as well. And I'll tell you a funny story where when I was doing the purchasing, like all the – so I'd get in early in the morning, like 6 o'clock in the morning. I have to – it was a bit old school. Get on the phone, start calling the seafood mongers and the seafood suppliers and start negotiating prices. So the prices of fresh fish wasn't set.
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So you always be ringing to negotiate price. And I remember this one supplier, he goes, Michael, how old are you? And I said, 21. He said, you don't sound 21. I was 16 at the time. So it sounded a lot more mature then. Yeah, so look, I appreciate that kind of,
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upbringing and having that opportunity to learn at a very young age. And I had to be responsible at a very young age. And that kind of, you know, I was grateful for my father to give me that opportunity. But then we started opening more restaurants and cafes for the Tassus, for my dad, for the family.
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And, uh, so then, yeah, so my brother, my older brother, Damon and I were basically, you know, running, you know, uh, a lot of the, a lot of the venues and we're opening a few venues as well over the years. And, um, yeah, that's basically kind of how it all started at a young age.
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Well, that's quite inspiring, actually, because as, you know, also being the migrant myself, I've also gone through a similar thing where, you know, I think I told you my first job was age of 15, being a Woolworths checkout chick. I was pretty good at that job, actually, in Surfers Paradise. And, you know, we call it a tough love, but I think it's really what...
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set the foundation for us early on. I think that we sometimes take that for granted. A lot of people might not see that side, obviously. At the time, your mind's somewhere different, but later on in life, you definitely do appreciate
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you're kind of laying a foundation of hard work and, you know, and understanding. But yeah, looking back now, it was like, it was basically my university degree, you know, into hospitality. Yeah, right. That's probably better than university degrees, I'll say. Yeah, it's true. You know, I've seen many people who graduate in hospitality, including my wife, actually.
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Hotel management, I should say. But no, that's amazing. And I think I was your loyal customer at your first venue in Eagle Street in Brisbane, CBD. And we met early on. I think this is going back almost 12 years or more. Now, from learning from that and expansion of business
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you know, family business and supporting your father, you know, you obviously sort of branch out of that. It wasn't a comfort zone, but I guess branch out of that to start something there. Walk me through that if you don't mind. Yeah, definitely.
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So basically when my wife and I got married, um, was in 2009, uh, you know, working for the family, it's, um, you know, it has, it's, it's challenges and to, to, to go further in life as well, uh, cause you want to create your own family. You have to kind of step outside this circle sometimes. Um, and, um,
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I was lucky enough, I wanted to, because my wife, Lila, she's a Brisbane girl, and we wanted to open a venue in Brisbane. And we're deciding what concept, what name, but we thought to bring the brand George's up to Brisbane. We thought that was a great idea, and I was looking, it took me probably a year and a
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find their location. I went to multiple operators, sorry, landlords, and it was quite challenging to find the right location. And then, luckily enough, at the time, it was Stocklands. He owned Eagle Street Pier
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And, you know, the opportunity was there. And I took it with two hands straight away. I knew. I started doing my research. There was only two venues at the time that were doing extremely well. And they were pretty busy all the time. So I thought this is a no-brainer. So I opened – so that was, I think, yeah, El Centro and Cha-Cha was there already. Yep. Yep.
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And I knew, and they were a busy lunch and dinner. So I thought, yep, no brainer. So I moved forward, went aggressive and, you know, signed the lease. And, you know, great learnings from that first lease because that was foundation of understanding business.
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throughout my, you know, when I did open more restaurants to understand, make sure you get your lease perfectly done. And, you know, if you don't have understanding about leases, then really speak to like a great lawyer who knows about leases. But anyways, a perfect spot. Um,
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The funny thing is, actually, I'll tell you, no one really knows this. So it was – the spot I took was above – I think it was Aria. Yeah, so above Aria and then at the time –
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It was, was the old rugby club and, um, it had good bones, uh, but the landlords, uh, thought, uh, I would, uh, you know, do a full renovation, spend millions. I say, yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll make sure it's all looking good.
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But I only had a little bit of money, you know, so I had to take a bank loan. And basically I kept pretty much all the bones in the restaurant and pretty much just new carpet, paint job, a few little things. And when the landlords first saw the restaurant and the renovations, they weren't too impressed with me.
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But the thing is after, you know, the first few years and the amount of people coming through from, you know, through the venue, they were like, like really impressed with the numbers and the turnover that we were doing. I would say that was probably the busiest restaurant at that time. You know,
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Our peak was in 2015, 2016, where we were doing probably about 5,000 covers a week. Wow. You know, on the staff level, we had around about 100 staff. In that venue? In that venue. Wow. So, yeah, it was queues. It was always full. I remember lighting up all the time. The famous whole soul. The whole soul. That's my favorite thing.
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But yeah, look, it was great learnings and for my first business, because I knew everything about the back of house, the front of house, but I didn't get trained in the financial business side.
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And, you know, one thing, you know, starting a business and you don't know about the financial side is, I said to actually to Lila, we just make sure that... Lila's your wife. Lila's my wife, yes. So until we...
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understand the financial side. We're just going to, you know, have the bare minimum for wage and just expenses. So I think we're, I think it was like $400 or something we were talking and we moved to the city. So we're paying rent in one of the high rise because we had to work, you know, long hours, seven days from, you know, first one in last one out. So we'd get there eight in the morning and then we'll leave one or two in the morning.
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So we needed somewhere to be close. So look, we just wanted to, you know, make sure the first few years that we understood the financial side. And that was great learnings for us as well. So, yeah, so then from that moment...
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uh you know we we focused on that business and you know did did a few tweaks on on its on it you know along the journey and um and 2018-19 i i opened my second venue
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Okay. Now, before we get into the second venue, obviously, your George's, that was the place, like I said, given that I was a developing professional in the early days. What would you say?
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you know, that differentiated George's with so much competition around you from a high-end restaurant to, you know, really, you know, Cha Cha Cha was a, you know, signature steakhouse and, you know, especially by the river, it's a beautiful location. You know, why do you think that, you know, why do you think people lined up for the third?
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Look, I think especially that time when we kind of hit the market, it was definitely a point of difference. A friend of mine actually said to me, oh, Michael, you know, I'll never forget, he said to Michael, it was a pretty bad decision going to that precinct and you've got all high-end restaurants. I said, no, no, because what we're doing is we're going in there with good food, excellent service,
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we're still delivering good food and we're still delivering, you know, the service or better. But it's at a really good price point. And I think if you, you know, I saw, I saw a few people actually as well, cause it was half price. Cause we did a famous half price lunch back then. So half price lunch. And then in the evening,
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if you book and see between 5.30 and 6.30, you get the half price menu. It's funny, sometimes they'll bring clients and they'll say, hey, Michael, can you just, because I'm shouting to the clients, just bring out the dinner menu. That was me.
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But look, I think people appreciate if they're going to – it doesn't matter about the price point or if you're going to give good value. And look, we had sort of menu items on there which lifted the price up as well. But 70% on that timeframe was 50% off entrees and mains. So it was good value. But then we had live seafood, which –
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Your ticket price goes up from over $200. But if you kind of make sure that whatever the guest is spending from $50 to $100 and you're giving great value and you're nailing it with good food and service, they're going to love you and keep coming back. And we had clients, guests, I'd see them three, four times a week in that venue or maybe more because sometimes it was actually, you couldn't buy that.
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product really and cook it at home for the price that you're getting inside the restaurant, getting cooked and served. Whole soul, my favorite. And having that view as well. The view was magic. It's great. And I literally saw from the early days of your restaurant when it had the hideous blue carpets.
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So I had to do things a bit. And then I thought, oh, the chairs have changed. Oh, the tables changed. So obviously you've reinvested. So no, I reinvested straight away because I knew, you know, this was the budget I only had at the start. And I knew I had to keep up with demand and, you know, and the surrounding restaurants, which they had more, you know, you know,
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money than me at the time. So I had to reinvest pretty quick. So every time I made a little bit, I put back in, I'll change things and reinvest, reinvest to get to a stage where, you know, it was a very, it wasn't, they were coming for the, you know, the good food, the good service, but then they were coming for the atmosphere as well.
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Good talking about reinvesting. Obviously, as you have reinvested everything you've earned back into the business, the second part of the opportunity came and that's expansion, right, for you. So before you expand and you commit into bigger venture, you know, I know this for myself because I've grown my business to where it is now, you know, committing to that larger lease, you're signing your name against it.
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And then you know that you could be personally liable for this if it doesn't make it. You know, like obviously you've opened a couple more restaurants in either area. Walk me through that thought process that you've had and that additional bit of courage that backed you up to make those executions to expand.
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Look, at the time I had a lot of years of experience behind me, number one. I, you know, I learned from a lot of great people. Um, so that really gave me the courage when I was learning. And then when I opened the first venue.
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it gave me another level of courage to go and open the next venue. So, uh, I got approached, um, by a leasing agent, uh, down the river, the riverside where Massimo is. So then the next venue was Massimo. So, uh, the tenant, uh, who, uh, uh, you know, unfortunately, you know, they, they, they left, uh, it was, uh, was called Groove Train. Um,
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And so I took that spot. It was probably the worst position at that time because it was at the end of the dining precinct and it was at the end of the last bit of the dining on the river. And I thought, you know what, if you're going to give –
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Great food, great service. And I had to take that leap, what you're saying, because the fit out, I had to spend the money this time on the fit out. So I had to go to designers. So it was my first stage of really –
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approaching designers, you know, getting three builders, negotiating, you know, with the prices, understanding, having that, you know, making that call where, you know, this builder is going to be good for the job. Because actually the first restaurant I did a lot of things, even myself, like with friends,
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So this time I had to actually just go to a proper builder and do things, you know, properly, you know, for the landlord to lease and everything. So, um, yeah,
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Yeah, so look, I took the loan and my wife goes, are you sure? I said, look, I wanted to open an Italian restaurant. So I was very passionate, always loved Italian food. And I thought, you know, I've always, you know, like as a young kid as well, you know, I loved that, you know, making fresh pasta, you know, fresh produce. And yeah, I just wanted to do – and the name, it took me a while to come up with Massimo.
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What does it mean? Actually, I've asked that question.
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Look, it means like maximum flavor, you know, everything, you know, to the best, basically. Like Bellissimo, you know. Yeah, I think, yeah. So, look, it's after, you know, the chef's name, like, you know, people's names as well. A famous chef is called Massimo. So I thought, yeah, no brainer and, you know, it rolls off to the tongue well. It's kind of easy to remember as well, the name. So, yeah, just I – and from pretty much, you know, the learnings from opening the shop –
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going through that build stage and then opening the doors, it was actually a really nice feeling, you know, compared to say George's. Brand new brand, you know, I put everything into it. It's very passionate about that project and it took off from day one. Wow.
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And, yeah, I couldn't believe it. Look, every restaurant, every venue I've opened,
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you know, I always take learnings from each one. So I get better as I go, because I go, I've learned something from here, I've learned something from there. But I've learned, you know, a lot of the foundation actually came from my learnings from George's because of the high volume that you need to do. So a lot of restaurants will never do that volume. But it makes you understand how to, you know, run, you know, different cost structures, you know,
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rostering on different times so the business side of things actually gave me values for my future venues. That's amazing well you know I think from then onwards I know you've sort of gone through and
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and expand it even further from the lessons you've learned and, and you've sort of haven't stopped since essentially you've always opened kind of new restaurant almost every year, maybe except the COVID period, but we'll go through that in a, in a second. And, you know, then obviously an opportunity where the spot, the Aria used to be down below from George's you've opened up the Rico's, which was the Spanish bar. And yeah, tell me about that present a little bit and then before we sort of go. Yeah, sure. So yeah,
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The landlords, so from Stocklands, they went to Texas. Texas saw my success from Massimo, and they wanted me to take over the area location. For me, it was a no-brainer because I know the area well. I always had some love, you know, always felt passionate about Spanish food.
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And I had this concept in my mind and basically how Rico was born. So, you know, we did, you know, went through kind of like a name generation of like what names are going to be. I had like five different names and Rico just felt to me, you know, it was a powerful, had great energy. And yeah, so...
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Open Rico's kind of actually used the same builders as Massimo. Got a great relationship with them. And so I used the same builders and the same designers. And I've been using the same designers actually all the way through now. But yeah, so the good thing about the Aria spot, the bones were already there. Yeah.
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And, you know, we had to spend a bit of money on the venue, of course, to bring it to life. And I think I was looking, I was looking, I was talking with the landlords, Texas. And the reason why I don't think it worked so well, what kind of, Aria was a fantastic business. Yeah.
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And it got to a stage where I think being in Queensland, they like activation. So I thought when I did open Rico's, I would open the venue up and activate the bar area. So I created this outside area pretty much out of nothing.
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We had a beautiful dining room. Yes. And then we had this massive kind of bar area inside and outside, and it was heaving. From day one, it just exploded. It took off like a rocket. And, look, Rico's is not there at the moment. Hopefully we'll relocate that brand soon. Yeah.
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But it was, I think if anyone who went to Rico's, you know, have great stories. Yep. And they've got great memories as well from that time. I agree. It was a fun place where you can go and have little bits of everything. And the Bairla was fantastic. And I sense a bit of that familiarity of that Bairla actually at the Mugavilles actually. So it's actually quite a nice one.
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So it's continuing to sort of expand from there. And I see you every time you also decide to open another restaurant, you go through almost exactly, probably if not more, same stress as you do them. And I see you – because I think it's important to you. And people will be wondering –
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you know, what's behind the driving force of you to just, you know, now, you know, obviously fast forwarding and, you know, into where we are now, you know, you've built a successful empire, hospitality empire, and everyone comes up to you and be like, if they ask you, what do you do? You say a restaurant business, you know, you tell me that half the people time, they're like, so difficult, you know what I mean? And it's true, right? It's like the most difficult business in the world to be successful in. You have to have,
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passion for hospitality. If you don't have any passion for hospitality, don't get into the business. It's all about passion. But look, at the start, I had to wear a thousand hats. And then when the restaurants grew into what it is now, I started slowly taking off one hat at a time.
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But, you know, it's only the last kind of, I'd say, maybe year and a half, two years, maybe max, where things have got a little bit easier for me. I started creating a team around me. That's all about my team. So I've got a staff. I've got a member of my team where he's actually when I was a head chef for my family's business, you know, he was my apprentice chef. Yeah.
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So Dan, Daniel, he's the head chef at Massimo. He's been with me, I'd say I've been working along with him maybe 28, 28 years or 27 years, something, something like that high. But a lot of my key members have been with me 20 years, 15 years, eight years, you know, so it's, um, those people around me have made the foundations and helped me grow the business. So we kind of grow, grow together.
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Yeah, that's amazing. And I do know, and there's something, one thing I really love about you is that, you know, you tend to trust people around you really, and then, you know, your trust is very unshakable oftentimes, and that's the thing that you do. Well, my wife says to me, I trust too many people too easily. I don't think so, but, you know, I think that's good, you know. I can't help it. You have trusted people and team around you, and, you know, obviously...
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Even for me, when I run business and when I'm always forefront of trying to think about what's next, what's next, you know, you often tend to forget about yourself. Yes. You know, and, you know, no doubt you've gone through the same, you know. A hundred percent. Is there like a methodology that you use along the journey to better yourself? And what was that drive behind putting more effort in bettering yourself, if that makes sense?
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Look, at the start, it was quite hard. I was wearing a thousand hats. So growing the business, it was very challenging where I was in the business seven days. There was no weekends. There was no coming home early. My personal life as well had its moments. But luckily, I have a strong wife at home. So she understood the vision. Yeah.
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But it's hard at times, but it's when, when you, when you're growing, it's like growing pains. So you have to wait for that right moment where you can kind of execute, you know, another staff member to like allocate another position might cost you a bit of money at the start, but hopefully it works out. So
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Making that call by adding a new position in to take off that hat is kind of crucial. But, you know, the timing has to be right, especially in hospitality. The margins are super tiny, you know.
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You have to make sure that when you do grow, you know, make sure that you, you know, kind of do everything at the start and then slowly let things go and delegate your work to the right person, you know what I mean, and trusting them. And don't be on top of them so much. Let them ride it.
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pull them up if they're doing something wrong and learn from each other. But a lot of the guys actually around me, and I put into those positions as well, I've learned a lot from. So there's kind of that give and take as well. So, yeah. That's amazing.
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I think, me included, I think I can call myself quite a blessed individual because I have in my business people that I can walk in and be proud that I can actually learn something from my team members. And sometimes I think, you know, and that's actually quite rare in business leaders.
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at times, and this is I think what makes you definitely more special, is that our humbleness comes from perhaps your faith, perhaps with how you've grown up along the corners. So every time you did find any difficulties in life and maybe in most challenging moments,
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that you had to endure, you know, is that something that really brought you back out to the, to the normal version of sell, where as a business leader, you still have to give energy, you know, it's like continuous giving. Like, so what was that thing that really pulled you forward? I've, I've, I think the foundation of, um, cause I'm Orthodox background. So I believe in Jesus and I'm a Jesus, um, you know, true and true. And, uh, you know, I think, uh,
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There was moments in my life where, to be honest with you, I tested the model and I got a backslap and I realised, you know what, this is the path I have to stick to my faith and go forward. But if you keep pushing, keep going forward, you're always going to go through challenging moments. But I always believe if you do the right thing, be a good human being,
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Don't be greedy, help people. Things will always work out, but always keep pushing forward. You know what I mean? And the biggest key thing as well would be I always try to improve something every day in my business, something small because it's like compounding. Eventually, you know, in 30 days it's just going to get better. But if you leave things and if you're lazy, you know, it's not going to work out that well.
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Very good point. I think 1% better than yesterday is something we all try to aim for. And if you do that, you know, wealth management, we call it the wonder of the seventh wonder of the world is compounding interest and compounding returns. So obviously, you're a living proof of that. The compounding on leases, you know.
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I had to digest. That's true. I still have to try and get out of that one. That's true. But you've been making great success along the journey. So now, no doubt at one point in your lifetime, we talked about difficult times and what helps you to sort of steer forward of those times.
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you would have had to challenge one of the biggest difficulties in your life, you know, whilst you're running this empire and keep committing yourself to those least commitments, you know, what was it and how did you sort of endure that part during, you know, what was the most difficult part in this whole journey? If you were to name that one event.
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Look, when I had the three venues, I had George's going, Massimo and Rico, I got just, I think about...
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eight months after I got hit with, we all got hit with COVID. And I thought, you know, the world was over, you know, what have I done? I put, you know, all my eggs in one basket. I could see, you know, the look on my wife's face as well. So there was a lot of things going through my mind at that point, but then opportunities come in, in kind of bad times. So,
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I took, you know, the leap and I, you know, the landlords kind of saw what I've, you know, the same landlord, Dexas, saw what I created. They gave me an opportunity to do another restaurant throughout COVID. And, you know, in hard times, things do come quite cheap.
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Definitely, yes. For those who take the opportunity during the hardest time, tend to make it too, by the way. And to be honest with you, I love learning. If I can learn, for me, it's better than money. So I had the opportunity to do a steakhouse. So I created Fat Cow. The first Fat Cow was Fat Cow Steak and Lobster.
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And pretty much at the same time of that agreement, my other landlord, where I had Massimo, gave me the opportunity to take over. A restaurant was closing down. And that's when I opened up Oppa. Mm-hmm.
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So with Fat Cow, I always wanted to learn and I thought Steakhouse was, you know, I've never done Steakhouse before. So there was a lot of research involved and luckily I had a great team as well behind me. It's always a team as well, which is the foundations. And when I opened Fat Cow, it was very, very successful. Very, very successful. I didn't realise...
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you know, cause it was through that COVID time as well. Uh, I thought, oh yeah, it'd be busy, but won't, you know, won't be overly busy. And we were pumped and we opened, we opened that venue, which is the worst thing in the hospitality. You never want to open a restaurant around November, December. We opened, I think it was like December, the 26th of December, 27th of December at the end of December. Mm.
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And anyone who knows Brisbane City that well back in those days, now it's a bit different. You know, after December, January goes dead. Everyone goes on holidays. Everyone goes to the coast or up north to the Sunshine Coast. So the city goes dead. But, yeah, look, we were super busy. That was, you know, great learnings from that venue. And pretty much a few, three, four months after the Fat Cow opening,
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I straightaway opened Oppa. And for me, that was a passion project because… Your cultural background. Your cultural background. And I wanted to really open the best Greek restaurant, authentic Greek restaurant in Brisbane. And lucky for us and the team, it was a very successful opening. It was huge. Yeah.
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I'm coming to your point where most challenging. I was going to say that this is why you're so successful because you tend to focus on the positive, not the negative. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. So everything was all in the high, yeah? Yeah, all in the high. Everything was going super well, even through COVID. Yeah.
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And then two things happened to me. One, I think it was like six months or seven months after the opening of Opa, I got hit with the floods. I think it was 2000, I can't remember now, 2022, I think it was, or 21 floods.
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All the real fronts. Business was going well. Everything was under high. And then the floods happened. Oppa and Massimo, the water goes pretty much very close to the ceiling. Underwater.
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devastating. I was like, oh my God, you know, here we go. And then, uh, a week after that, I got hit with a demo clause. So the three restaurants I had at time at Waterfront, Demolition Clause. So I had Fat Cow, George's, uh, Enrico had six months to vacate.
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For the development project. For the development, yes, which is a beautiful project. So I had, basically in my mind, I had zero restaurants. Maspo Opera, you know, is in the sea, in the river.
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And then I got six months to close the other restaurants. So I got six months to open. If I wanted to go back in, I got six months to open the other two venues. So, and I'm thinking to myself, one, you know, I've got all this stuff. Like what am I going to do with all this stuff?
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And, you know, a few things went through my mind and I was, you know, I was actually in a really, really bad place, like super bad, probably my lowest point, you know, in. And again, you know, luckily, you know, I had, you know, my faith, what, you know, kept me strong in those very dark times. And I said to Lila, my wife, I said, I don't know, I think –
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maybe we should just, you know, go to a different direction. Maybe we, you know, I was thinking to move to Greece. A lot of things was going through my mind. And I, you know, I knew I had a lot of staff, you know, I had team members with me for a long time, worked very hard. So I couldn't let them down. Plus,
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I also remember someone saying to me, which I won't mention too much, after a week of the venues going in the floods, they were trying to get my lease behind my back.
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So I was like, double whammy. Double whammy. Yeah. So like I said to myself, like, how do I come back 10 times stronger? What can I do to, you know, everyone's thinking to myself, like, you know, what whispers saying is finished, is gone, is over.
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And I'm thinking to myself, how do I come back 10 times stronger? So, you know, I've got, you know, made sure that we opened the, you know, before the three venues were closed down, we opened Massimo and Oppa straight away, back up. And, um, a friend of mine found me an opportunity in, uh, West Village, which is a beautiful dining precinct in West End. Mm-hmm.
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And he said, oh, Michael, look, I've got an opportunity for you to open a restaurant in West End. And I thought, look, I need to get another venue straight away because I don't want to lose my staff and I want to try and help. Then I'll have, from going from five venues, at least I have three venues that can kind of work it out.
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So, you know, and I said to his name is Julian. So is, is one of the best leasing agents in Brisbane. And I said to him, look, I don't really, I'm not a big fan of West End. You know, I always stayed in the city. I love the city. I know the city.
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He goes, no, no, come, come, come check it out. And West End back those days, you know, it was, you know. A bit more rougher. A little bit rough, yeah. So when he took me through the precinct, though, I fell in love. So it was like the old and new. I was just, I knew straight away. I said, yep, sign me up straight away. Boom. So then I...
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So I opened up our next venue called Yamas, which is a Greek, it's like a sister restaurant from Oppa. But to be honest with you, that point of my life there was extremely, extremely, extremely
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challenging and difficult through personal, through my health. I gained a lot of weight. I was smoking. I was always off and on with the cigarettes as well. I was actually drinking a little bit heavy as well. I don't drink anything anymore. I don't smoke. I'm very healthy now. But my mind was very...
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you know, all over the, all over the place because I was working seven days, you know, things, you know, money, uh, you know, finance, uh, you know, I've got three, three kids, three beautiful kids as well, family. So I was just like trying to work out, you know, so there's a lot of, uh, moving parts at that time. So yeah, that's, that would be my, one of my most challenging moments. Yeah. In business.
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That's amazing, Michael. And quite inspiring, to be honest, because I don't think not too many people would have chosen to sign up on other leads at the worst point of their life, knowing, you know, what to do. Yeah, look, at that point, though,
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I thought I had the team behind me, I've had the experience, but there was a little bit of unlucky situations. So things were what happened to me at that moment. It wasn't my doing. It was just, you know, it just happened and it was just a little bit unlucky.
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But I kind of knew, you know, I backed myself because I knew that I can do it. I mean, I've got the team, you know, I've got the processes, you know. I know I'm passionate about hospitality, even though it's very hard work. I would say a little bit unlucky is certainly an understatement of funny.
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you've gone through uh from you know zero to where you are i think almost zero to where you are is actually quite a remarkable story um so you know i think uh many people will find that very very inspiring um now you know fast forward now obviously you got you know beautiful restaurants even in the west end you've got rich and rare which is you know beautiful steakhouse um and you know you got aunties now just opening up uh in you know behind recently and and again a
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you know, amazing success that you're having at the moment. Yeah, we've got beautiful, beautiful steakhouses, rich and rare, fat cow, you know, very famous kind of steakhouses. We're lucky enough to get into the kind of Asian cuisine with Long Wang and Nancy just recently opened and taken off like a rocket.
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And I can assure you that it's Asian approved, by the way. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. And going through things like the tender of the Green Bridge. So for me, that was quite rewarding when 300 people went through the tender. It was a long process, a huge process from a certain number of people went down to the top three.
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We got chosen and just having that iconic, you know, restaurant on the bridge, you know, for, you know, for me that was quite special, you know, because I was like, kind of brought me back from my, to my original restaurant where George's was, because it's kind of very similar views and it's not that far away as well. And, you know, just giving back, I thought, you know, this is like for the Brisbane community as well. Yes. Yes.
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So me giving back and making sure to do the right thing and do a restaurant to do Brisbane proud as well. So, so we're lucky enough to have stilts on the bridge, Mogla Bills, which is a very busy kind of a cafe restaurant. And it goes from breakfast, uh, lunch and dinner. Very, very busy, 60 square meters, a little bit of outside space, but super busy. Um,
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And then, you know, Queens, Queens Wharf. Yes. So they, you know, they picked us to do two restaurants in the Queens Wharf, Pompette, which is a French restaurant, and Dark Shepherd, which is like a wood fire Mediterranean Greek inspired restaurant. And, you know, yeah.
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even going through that process was, you know, it was great learnings from, you know, going through the build, through going through unions. And that was my first kind of union building job. And I have to say, and I forgot to mention Foch as well. Yes. Portside. Yes. Portside there where that precinct at the time, everyone told me, Michael, do not go there. No one's going there. Hmm.
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Bad move, don't open a restaurant. And every time I was going there to Portside, there was no one. It was like a ghost town. You're right, yes. And I was like, but I knew the area well from back in the days. And I knew it had great bones and it was a great position, it was a great area. But it just needed a few good, better operators in there. Yeah.
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And now you look at it from day one when we opened Fosh, it exploded. It kind of surprised me. It was mayhem. I wasn't expecting that. So actually I wasn't even ready. So I did a lot of bad mistakes as well. Yeah, it's a long journey. So like the journey hasn't been perfect. No. But every single restaurant we've opened, we've kind of learned from and we've got better as we go as well.
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You know, and that's probably where I think the commonality of successful people come from is that they have, they understand and if you are humble enough to understand your mistakes and actually learn from it and then sort of apply for the next one, I think that's the secret to success. But I can also, you know, testify. I can also say that, you know,
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service and i think in these modern days of ai era and things like that the human touch and and everyone at your restaurant is you know they're fun they they know how to spark a good conversation bit of banter like queensland style you know what i mean so i think that's uh probably a key differentiator from a from a customer perspective that i could uh happily share no no i agree with you there and that's what we kind of in our kind of um you know our values when we when we bring
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We don't want to be stiff like front of house. We don't want to be – our focus is everyone's welcome, the doors are open, we're giving true hospitality. We're not just giving service, you know, here's your wine, top up the wine and pull the – you know. We're giving – when you come into the venue, we want you to feel welcome and that you – and you get recognised, you know,
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And, you know, and having the waiters having a bit of banner as well. But, you know, they'll, they know when to do it and when not to do it. But they'll, you know, we want, we encourage this. Yeah. I just had one in Fakal. It's a French waiter. Anthony. Yeah, Anthony. He's hilarious. That's right. That's right. So you always give me a couple of, a couple of pokes every time I'm there.
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but uh just you know just to wrap things up and i guess perhaps to just reflect on some of these learnings and and the life lessons you've learned and one of the biggest thing that we all want to do is and and very hard to do is is to talk about some of these stories that you've gone through because we simply don't often have these platforms but moreover um
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I feel like this could be for your children, this story, in the future as they grow up. I appreciate it as well. And I think it'll be a bit of a legacy sharing from your perspective. But if you were to perhaps tell your kids, who's probably old enough to watch this again, what would be that fatherly advice that you want to give them as just imagine they're watching this right now? Look, I think,
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Always, you know, be truthful. Always be honest. Be humble. Always do the right thing. Always try to give back when you can. And then, you know, in business, that will thrive through business, but also keep pushing forward. Don't look back. You know, if you do a mistake, just keep pushing forward and learn. Learn.
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And you'll achieve kind of greatness, you know, but, you know, also have, you know, have faith. Yeah. And, yeah, just be a good human being. It's amazing advice. I love the journey. That's amazing advice, but not just for your kids. I think that's amazing advice for everyone who's tuning in. Look.
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Really appreciate the time you spent with me. And, you know, I think we could have done this. And you're my first guest. So thank you. I appreciate it. And I feel privileged to actually be the first one. So thank you, Johnny. Thank you. And we look forward to, you know, hopefully bringing you back again on this platform eventually. And we actually at the restaurant have been talking about what we could name this podcast and things like that. But start of great things. Always got to start somewhere. We can go on a deeper dive.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'd love to do that. There's a lot of actually advice piece you can give, especially people who's aspiring to be, because the restaurant is a very hard business to run, as you know, and they'll love to pick their brain. So hopefully we can delve into further in the future. But once again, thank you very much. And thank you for those, everyone who's tuned in. You know, I hope you found that helpful and no doubt you've gone back with a couple of lessons to learn from. So yeah.
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Stay tuned. There'll be more of these episodes coming and we'll look forward to having you on again next episode. Thank you very much. Thanks, Johnny. Thank you, Michael.
