Espresso: Black Bear Burger, Street Food Stall to Burger Empire (and how you can too)

0:00Espressos is sponsored by supply chain software gurus unleashed it talks to e-com and accounting software where it's helped islands cut admin time in half, get granular clarity on your margins, know where your stock is, don't miss availability, brands like Candy Kittens, Tiny Rebel and Trip, all used Unleashed and so should you.

0:31How do you keep going in that moment? Because we've done so much testing I guess in the food and it was, I think you were naive at that point, where you were just like, yeah, let's just do it. And it's still fun, it's like demoralising, but if you only sell 20 burgers in that first little bit, I think if we constantly kept doing that then we'd probably put a bit of candy in, but it didn't really matter, it was a side project I guess. and then I guess our first break was when Broadway Market, we went out there because we used to go there most weekends. We went to the Broadway Market, 200 Bird. It was a really custom market.

1:18They're still there now. They started in Breakin. They used to all have a big stand. and it was one of their first places where they started because they were trading when we were there. And we went still, we found the market manager, but we were like, it's burger, we've got to try it, and that first shut us down. And here's like, and we've got like, too many people in the way in this. But it didn't really matter. It was a side project. And then we went back and, and then like, can you just try a burger again? Got his emails somehow. And then just every week, just email him, any spots this week?

2:06Any spots or next week? And then he emails back saying basically you start fucking emailing me. I'm not going to give you a space to market. And then so we kind of stopped for a little bit and then every now and then we'd just be like, let's go. And then one day out of the blue, he emailed us on like a Wednesday. There's a spot that's standing there, you can come in, they were trading a market. We went home and we had a market. We put everything together, we had a gazebo from Amazon which was not very traded. The second day we were trading, my brother came down because there was wind and the gazebo like Ben and then went back and my brother and his mate were sitting on the corner like the whole day just kind of like the whole day because he went up while we were trading and then it just kind of snowballed from there we got in there and then we were and then he you know it's like a little sign market to Broadway market trade there and then we moved to the main market and then so we kind of stopped for a good year and a bit.

3:12So you're still working a full-time job? Yeah.

3:20Yeah, so we were basically, we had a little routine. So Liz was working shifts, so she worked like three or four days a week, every morning days. Then on her days off, she would do sort of preps, like making your mom's dinner. So when we started, like two birds on the menu, they were a treat. It was the black bear, and then the brisket, which was my baby. Yeah it was a few weeks after we got in his place.

3:51So Liz would do a bit of prep on a Thursday on a day off. And on Friday I would sell some butchers, which had been there for a bit. We'd get a load of meat, he would grind it for us. When we first started, he was working for a job. He was running for us, taking it back, putting the fridge and some of us work. After work, go home. It was when, like, Game of Thrones, every weekend, every Friday, Liz would measure out the balls, I would press into packing. We started at two books, get everything ready. It was the flatbed. How did you deal with, like, So you've been cooking for mates and like 10-20 people, how did you deal with the intensity and the pressure when you start getting rammed?

4:42Because I think, one, the prop has to be banging every single time for people to come back. Suddenly when you're selling 20 burgers, it's 20 burgers every day, when it's ramming people are like where's my fucking burger? How did you navigate that? I think we literally learned the first time job and we still have to throughout the whole of... Take it back, six hours, five hours, one, and so forth. Well we've got the 20-foot French chicken. Yeah, I want to talk about that. It's when like GameStop. And all along the way we just... And actually if I could do it all again, I would have gone and worked in my five or six restaurants for like two months at a time.

5:24How did you deal with like, how did you deal with the intensity of pressure when you start getting rams? Yeah, sounds stupid but because we'd never worked in a commercial kitchen, we'd find for people to come back. Suddenly when you say trade burgers, when it's a rammer, it was pretty straight forward because we literally, only two beverages, me and Liz. You just pick it up as it goes. You just kind of get into a rhythm here and that's where you can learn how you actually cook your burn your way. Because every place has a different way. So how did you learn your way from the first market to the 100th market?

6:14How did you develop your unique... I guess, well one, actually this was one of the best things about how you do get to hear birds. You can wait until Saturday. But you just, it sounds pretty stupid because we'd know that. Obviously we had a lot of cities before designing the birds and stuff. But we were then just constantly trying to improve it. But in the market, it was pretty straightforward. but only two birds. Me and Liz. There was dark days, I'm sure. We're going to get, yeah, well, maybe let's go into that now then. Let's go. There's, I went to the fold earlier, I was just hanging around a bit.

6:59Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I love the thing, we're in your first market site now, the toilet is a woods, and then there's a bird bed, taking a shit here. What's the phrase? The birds, not the birds. The bears shit in the woods. Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is like, ooh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and I thought, oh my God, this could be an interesting question. So, because I think everyone, you said dark days, I think actually a lot of times when you're on your founder's journey, you can feel like you're shitting yourself in the middle of this dark grave, mysterious woods. I can't see the woods from the trees.

7:36You're like, where the fuck am I going? What was that moment when you felt like a bear shitting yourself in the woods?

7:44yeah sorry but like the toilet is quite gothic I was like Ian Blythe can drag you in a second it's really dim in there it's like that and then we've got the speaker and the music's really hard in there so go in there it's like dark some silly shit's going on in there but actually on the toilet I'll put a point on that story. The reason we designed the toilet and I thought, oh, well, that'd be an interesting question. Because when you go into a restaurant and it's really shitty news, it's like, if you don't care about your toilet, it's a bit of a symbolic representation of what you care about the rest of your restaurant and the rest of your food.

8:31How you do one thing is how you do everything. That's like someone taught you. It's like, How you do one thing is how you do everything. And as I say it's work, because I'm talking about it on the podcast. It's like, you know, not that I was hanging around with anything naughty, but the... Yeah, it's a talking point, and it's hilarious. It's like, yo, there's a bed, there's a bed, it's brilliant. Yeah, so what were the darkest days in the woods of the journey? Definitely in the darkest days. And how long was that period? About a year, year and a half or so. We're doing it every weekend. When you start this excitement, it's like this new thing.

9:10And to prepare all of our mates for that every weekend anyway, because we're all in our head and we're in pubs there as well. And it's like, generally, we're trying to do it, but it's set out there, perhaps, for what you care about. It's quite fun. It's a good cash flow, though. Yeah. Drinks on the ground. But there was like, summer's great and then you get to the winter, loads of trains kind of pack up and we were like all the states, and we were like all the states, and we were like, we'd keep looking at work these scenarios and keep that consistent. And like we would just get there like cold this morning, like free to get set up and set like this.

9:54thank you so much for listening to that espresso i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and are ready for the day let's be having your boy and please do subscribe follow the podcast share this espresso if on whatsapp if you liked it and also there's a link to our newsletter in the show description i spend 15 hours toiling and writing this bad boy it's full of wonderful wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink you're not going to get these in a business book so please subscribe and thank you later