An Interview with 2773

I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumour but a friend of a friend of a friend heard that one of the staff at Glenbrook’s 2773 café has a tattoo of the cafes logo. LET ME REPEAT THAT: one of the staff had a fork and spoon and the numbers 2773 permanently and painfully needled ONTO THEIR BODY. Clearly, the owner of 2773 was the person I needed to interview about the elements of culture that I’ve just covered in Culture 101.

Introducing Shane Simpson. Café 2773 is actually his fourth café venture and whether you’re a local hardcore Jazz Apple fan or a new convert to 2773, there’s no denying the café has been permanently busy since opening a year ago. So, in his own words;

“I’d describe our culture as positive. We try to empower our people in two ways. Firstly, we allow them to exercise their personality. Customers buy that; they connect with our staff when they are allowed to be themselves. We don’t want to make everyone the same and we want to see what they can bring to the table. It also means our staff aren’t confected when they’re serving. Secondly, we try to encourage them to make their own decisions; we have strict guidelines but we try to give people ability to make decisions.

“I think what builds a culture is people have to like you, their boss. They have to care, so you need to care about and know about their lives too.

“Hospitality is notorious for being a crap place to work with cranky pricks in the kitchen kicking breadbaskets about. It’s a hard job. If we all won Lotto tomorrow I think the last place you'd find us is at work but until that happens I think it important to make the workplace fun to be around, or at the very least, pleasant.

“In terms of processes that we have in place to keep the positive culture, I think doing little things for your staff that they aren’t expecting goes a long way. Say, if they like a certain cuisine buy them some vouchers for a meal out there. If you build your key players and look after them then they become your ambassadors.

“Also, this could come across as ruthless but hire carefully and fire quickly. If we think a staff member is precarious or seems likely to misrepresent us or let us or the team down, we’ve learnt from experience and we don’t wait for that to happen. When I get complimented on our staff, you feel like saying, its no coincidence. When you open, 60% of the ones you start with might not be right but you’ll get there.”

Oh, and the rumour about a staff member with a tattoo of the logo?

“We’ve got two! They got them together. One of them has left, Amanda; but she’ll be back, she’s pretty flighty and moves around a bit.  Any staff who leave and want to come back we welcome back with open arms. We’ve had some staff with us for seven years, and others who have left two or three times for other work and come back to us.”*

There was something Shane didn’t say that only occurred to me after our chat. He might not even be aware of it. As far as I can tell, he is living the culture he wants 2773 to have. Notice how his personality is front and centre? I’d never met Shane before but he was honest, authentic and a little rough around the edge, and exactly as he said, “customers buy that”. I did.

*And folks, I don’t know if you’ve ever worked in hospitality, but seven years is im-press-ive. Hey, it’s impressive for most employers nowadays.