To say I live and breathe food is an understatement. I was born into this life and I’ve never looked back.

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Growing up in Sydney’s Belrose with an Egyptian mother and Greek father - as well as my Yia Yia who took care of me and my sister - food was a huge part of my upbringing. I have always known food can be rich, exciting, complex and also simple, homely, a symbol of love. Lots of families come together around the smells and tastes wafting out of our home kitchen, but in our family food also means business.

From the age of ten when all my mates were out surfiing wild horses couldn’t drag me away from Dad’s restaurant. I loved to be there in the thick of it watching the action with all the staff in the kitchen and on the floor working in synchronicity - almost like a dance. The smells, the noise, the adrenaline - it was intoxicating. And from that tender age I was hooked. At every opportunity I’d be there with Dad working in the kitchen. Or wherever food was needed. One of my most treasured childhood memories is Mum putting me in a taxi at 5am so I could go and help Dad feed the hungry diggers on ANZAC Day after they finished the dawn service. What could be more Australian than that!

When I was 18 I was itching to get out there on my own. I found this fruit shop in St Ives that just spoke to me - I had this profound urge to give it a second life as a restaurant. So of course I went to Dad with my idea. And he told me to come back with a business plan. So I went away, did the work and came back with a solid business plan. And I’m so grateful for that because Dad really set me on the right path. Opening a restaurant in a fruit shop was a huge risk. But I believed in the idea, and I did the legwork to mitigate the risk. And that’s really become my motto. I love to put it all on the line, but with a solid game plan in place.

The restaurant I transformed from a humble fruitshop was a success and from there I opened more restaurants - keeping a personal investment and involvement in all of them. It was a great time. I learned some hard lessons too. I had a restaurant in Kenthurst that was really taking off, with celebrities and other luminaries coming in. But when I turned my attention completely to another venue, business cooled a little. I realised part of what was making the place a success was the personal touch - I was there, everyone knew me, and they knew what I stood for. The lesson was to always make sure that no matter how big my business got, I always wanted to be personally involved in my venues.

One day I was made aware of a club on the Northern Beaches in Sydney where the restaurant was failing. And I had this idea - what if I offered to take over the catering side of the business for them? After all, if there was one thing I’d learned on my journey so far it was how a good business plan could change everything. So I went in cold and approached them with a bold plan. And it worked. I took over the catering side of the club, using everything I’d learned and transformed it from a sinking ship into a soaring success.

But this was just one club… and in Australia, these specialised clubs are everywhere. Designed to service a particular community whether that be a sport like rugby league or bowling (for your Aussie slang dictionary, we call them “bowlos”) a recreation or a social group - these clubs also offer a warm, friendly, family environment for the wider community. And they’re everywhere. In virtually every suburb and town in Oz. I realised there was a major opportunity here. These clubs are complex businesses - integrating activities with accommodation, sometimes gambling and, of course catering. But in a lot of these places the catering side left something to be desired. So I used my experience on the Northern Beaches and expanded the business to take over more catering contracts. Each club taught me something new. To pull this off, I really needed to get to know, understand and love every single community. If you’re gonna feed people like they’re your family you have to get to know them right?

Eventually I would have eleven clubs - which can feed up to 6000 people a day. And I have always been committed to staying personally involved in every single one of them. It’s a huge juggle. When Covid hit we all know it hit the hospitality industry hard. And it also forced us to transform. I started using a catering software package called Hospitality Genie to streamline and automate the processes across my clubs. I was so impressed with how it improved efficiency and profit margins that I decided to get a stake in the business. Once again I applied my motto that my Dad instilled in me when he made me make my first business plan: risk big but risk smart. If I was going to invest in catering software it was going to be in the company I knew was amazing from first hand experience. So I bought 50% of Hospitality Genie and I’m still a customer! Hospitality Genie runs all eleven of my clubs.

I love seeing how software improves things for other businesses too - and the best thing about it is that it frees up time to focus on the people side of the business, which is everything. I expect all my staff to treat every patron like their own family and in turn I treat all my staff like family. All 300 plus of them. They can all call me any time of day, and no problem is too big or small. I want hospitality to be a career of choice which is why I am deeply focussed on staff training and treatment. After 12 months every single employee is offered shares in the business - I invest in them, they invest in me and we all grow together.

After I became prominent in the industry I was approached to get into consulting, and now I do it all over the world. This idea of investing in people is one of the most important learnings that I have taken to the consulting arm of my business. Hospitality is one of the oldest industries in the world and it is always evolving. I love taking my own lived experience, the lessons and values I’ve picked up along the way, to help other businesses around the world thrive - whether that’s a large hotel group in Singapore or a taverna tucked away on a tiny Greek island. The breadth of my experience covers project management, concept development, budget establishment, staff training, industrial relations, performance measurement quality control and new product launches. When I’m consulting I study each new business, just like I study each new club I take on myself and use my wealth of knowledge and experience to create a bespoke plan to turn their fortunes around. I stick around for the implementation of the plan and provide continuous follow up because I won’t sleep unless I know they’re succeeding.

You might have picked this up from me, but I’m not a guy who likes to sit around twiddling my thumbs. So I’ve recently started a new venture - so I can personally understand the industry even better. I’ve opened two production kitchen warehouses - Good and Plenty Wholefoods and Moon Deli, which provide western and asian catering on a commercial scale.

When I actually had to sit down and look back and all this it genuinely brought a tear to my eye. My life doesn’t leave a lot of time to reflect but when I do it’s all a bit overwhelming. I asked myself a question: what is my favourite memory after all these years? Of course there are so many, but one in particular comes to mind. And that’s my dear old Dad, he’s 70 now, having a meal in the restaurant at one of my clubs, and opening his wallet to show everyone a photo of me at aged 10 in a chef’s hat looking proud as punch. It’s really a full circle moment.