Chris Lucas, Welcome to the Mentor and straight Talk.

Mate.

This is the first time I ever done a double terrific.

We feel special special day.

Is it because I'm from Melbourne get a little bit of special treatment?

No, it's because you came up to where my head office is here in Chiffley, which is where you're now.

New head office for Sydney is in the bottom of Chiffley.

So we're both together.

We're neighbors, mate, and I can't wait to get down and try in your restaurant.

But let's just talk a little bit about who Chris Lucas is.

Whenever I see the name Lucas, then if I see a name like Chris in the front of it, or Michael or James or Peter or Nick, I immediately think there's a Greek behind there somewhere.

So the name Lucas is it's obviously spelled l u c as australianized or angler is your name of Greek derivation?

Well, it used to be l o u, which is the Greek derivation.

My father is from a little island called Castells, little island where half of Sydney.

Where half of Sydney.

You're from a little island, but big impact as so my father was one of the very early immigrants.

He came.

He actually arrived in Sydney along with his three brothers in nineteen twenty three.

Wow, yeah, just after the because they were living in Constantinople or Istanbul today, so they were Greek Turks in some respects they were Greeks, but they were living in occupied Turkey at the time.

And then when the war broke out, there was a lot of refugees and there were six brothers and they're all supposed to go on one boat to Greece, but somehow they got separated.

Two landed in Greece and four landed in Sydney.

And so yeah, it's been quite a history.

So of course in those days, you know, being being a Greek immigrant wasn't so trendy, so they had to change the name to be able to get work and to be able to get along in what was a pretty white Anglos act of time back then.

Right of people.

A lot of people probably don't realize is Castle Reso is just so the like you can see Turkey from there, you could almost swim to it.

Yeah you can, yeah, you can actually, yeah, you probably can well, I probably couldn't.

Greets are great Phraser probably could swim.

We haven't won too many world records bog I mean, but yeah, but you could, you can.

It's pretty close and and and the castle reasons a lot of it's Inny otherwise known as the Kazi's quite prolific in terms of represent representing Greece in Australia, especially in terms of business.

Yes, they've done well.

Although were referred to as the Jews of Greece because Castells will be close to Turkey.

Were great traders, so my my grandfather, etcetera.

We're all tobacco traders back in the turn of the century.

So they were very commercially minded and so they've overrepresented in terms of their success I think because of their sort of trading history in their culture, so they're always very business oriented.

Do you think that you're a Melbourne person.

We're in Sydney today for recording, but you're a Melbourne from Melbourne.

Do you think that your heritage has had any impact on who Chris Lucas is today in terms are doing business?

Oh?

Absolutely, yeah, of course.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, in lots of different ways, so you know, we're very proud of our culture.

I mean, you know, in the very formative years, I grew up in a pub.

My dad was a publican and a cook.

Today they call the chefs, but my father used to call himself a very simple cook.

And so we had a small pub in a rural area called Gelong, which is like Newcastle, I guess, right, very working class.

And in fact our pub was down by the wharfs.

So in those days, you know our clientele where the wharf is and the shears and you know, all the tough guys, right.

And my dad used to sell traditional sort of pub for you know, stencils and steaks and things.

But because he's Greek, he wanted to sell Greek food.

You wanted to cook Greek food, right, So he he would cook up some Greek food as a special and he give it to me as a kid because no one would bump me up, right because I was just a kid, say and send me out into the counter room.

And he said, let's just give the food away because they won't pay for it.

But he said, I wanted to try it, the Greek food, and I'd go out as a kid, you know, with a tray of masaka or something, and they go, what's this crap?

I look at this Greek food.

I said, you should try it's very tasty.

Oh, we'll not paying for this rubbish, and said it's for free.

So I learned a little sense of hospitality at the very basic level.

I learned what it was like to mix it with the tough guys in those days.

I guess, you know, the sort of street sort of cred that you needed in sort of you know, the formative years.

But I learned about how important food is, how it breaks barriers, breakdown barriers, and in fact, by giving away the Greek food, it became one of the most popular pubs in July well because they say, oh, con gives away a bit of grief.

It's actually not bad this stuff.

We've tried it.

It tastes all right, that's free.

So eventually we built up a market and the food in the pub became more and more European, more and more Greek, more and more Italian as the years went on, and actually got known as we changed the name of it to the Continental so to give it a bit of a europe It's spin.

So I learned my sort of formative years.

Then I guess, you know, service and looking after people and being hospitable.

What does that mean though, Chris, it's interesting when someone like you ta for granted, but maybe you don't the expectation of good service, good quality food, and a great experience when you go into a restaurant.

I expected uta for granted because you just you just know it's normal.

But what does it actually mean when you're thinking about how do I make sure this is experience is really good for my new customer, Mark, who's coming in today, for example, what is that about?

Like, it's not just the menu, it's just not just not something coming and say, hello, how are you?

Would you like a glass of water like a slice of bread?

But what what am I?

What are you trying to convey to me to your new customer?

Look, that's a very good question, because I haven't been asked that too many times.

But so there's sort of two elements to that.

So I learned the basic family type of hospitality as in your pub, that's part of it, family business and so forth.

But like all good Greek parents, they didn't want me to work in the family business, you know, because you do better.

They thought that we've worked we've worked all these years and we want our young son to go on to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Same my family, one hundred percent three.

So I actually I wasn't much good at school, but I ended up believe it or not, I ended up but becoming a pharmacist.

Right.

My mother used to be able to tell the local priest looks like but he's a worker on a drug.

So then, luckily enough, I actually took my first job here in Sydney working for IBM as a trainee salesman.

I was.

I wasn't much good at chemistry, so I ended up going into a sales right at the time one of the most successful marketing companies in the world.

So it wasn't just a technology business IBM.

It was a great marketing company and so I learned the other side of service and how important clients are by one of the best companies in the world.

The training I got in IBM as a young trainee salesman, you know, they flew into New York and a young country kid, I got exposure to the world of commerce and high flying commerce.

But one of the best companies in the world.

So what big corporates alike, what big corporates alone, what it's like to really look after clients and how important clients or service is because it was a very service based business.

And in those days probably taken them to lunch and things like that.

They used to actually train you how to take them to lunch.

Really, yep, you used to sit in a room just like this, and we'd actually have training sessions what they used to call cold calling, and they used to run us through how do you actually deal with the client in a professional IBM way?

You know.

I remember turning up to Kent Street.

Headquarters was in Kent Street that it's now been turning into an apartment building, and I thought it looked pretty cool.

I had a hot pair of flares and a sort of a check jacket.

And I remember the very first day I walked into the office to training, they called me up to the front and they said, what are you wearing?

Someone wearing a business suit?

They said, the definition of a certain this business is where the jacket mats of pants.

So here's a few dollars, go down to David Jones and get yourself a navy blue suit and a few white shirts.

So I learned that you had to dress well, you had to present yourself well, you had to be on brand, but it was all about the client.

So in IBM they used to have this thick needs to stick on your desk, used to say the word yes.

So the word no was almost effectively banned in that company.

You were never really allowed to say no to a client.

You had to think about creativity, how you could deal with a client to give them what they wanted.

So I learned, you know, the top end skills of dealing with class, and I had the family ethos what was ingrained built into my DNA, and you know, being Greek or being you know, from European descent, I think we do have a natural sort of want to please people.

You know, the cultures are often referred to as very warm, hospitable cultures, and so I had that really I think important blend the top plight, professional, world class type stuff.

But I also had that really basic thing and look, to be honest, all these years on, here we are now, not twenty twenty five.

The world's changed lots since the eighties, but what hasn't changed is making the customer happy, making them feel them the most important.

And today business we banned the word known I really we don't.

We don't use that word in our business at all.

That's that's the first thing we do in our training.

It's all about how we can make the guest experience the best it possibly can.

And we have a very simple rule.

We want our customers to leave our restaurants wanting to come back.

If they want to come back, we've done our job.

If they don't want to come back, we haven't done our job.

And it's just as simple as that.

So we like to keep the messaging very simple.

Make sure they leave the premise happy, and then that's up to the individual to make sure that they serve them properly, that they speak to them appropriately, that they dress appropriately.

They're claim professional, but most importantly, they're hospitable.

If if if I go back to your first restaurant, when was the decision that you made, I'm going to leave IBM or wherever you're doing at the time, I'm going to I'm going to go and do a restaurant.

Do you remember that period?

I remember it very well because my mother was very disappointed by the whole thing.

By then, my father had passed away, and you know, I was off into the corporate world.

Actually, by then i'd left, I mean many years after that, and I'd started my own IT business and my own tolco business and was quite successful.

But inside me, there was this little thing sitting in the back of my head that always sort of was at me about wanting to do what I think I always was meant to do.

I had a great passion for hospitality and food and it never really left me, to be honest, there's a bit of a magical thing about restaurants.

I don't know what it is.

A sort of people experience restaurants every day of the week just about you know, whether it's a cafe or a bar or a restaurant.

So you know, as a result, they everyone has an opinion about the business, but it's sort of it also means that they're in there, they've invested.

So even if you talk to the most successful business from you, you know he's happy to sit down and have a chat to you about what his favor restaurant.

There's a real connection there, I think with restaurants.

I think that's what I love about the business.

So that was always sitting inside me, and I was lucky that I was in my mid thirties and I was I was sort of pretty much done with the IT business and the flying around the world.

I'd lived in Takeyo, I've lived in New York, lived in London and so forth, and I wanted to come back home.

I had a young family, and the opportunity came up to get back into the restaurant business.

I owned this building and had a little restaurant in it, and the operator had sort of gone missings and I was left with this nice restaurant.

I thought, well, I'll just give that a bit of a run for a couple of months, and if I don't like it, I don't like it.

But if I like it, maybe prepsit.

It gives me something to do.

And it went back on from there.

It was a hit.

We had a few changes.

It was called one fitz Roysterrot and it's killed him down down on the beach.

And after that it was sort of you know, also Melbourne and Sydney, Australia really was growing up.

You know, we were becoming a truly global country.

Sydney and Melbourne were becoming more sophisticated.

The cities had gone from smallish sort of cities to big cities.

You know, people immigrating into a straight It was an exciting time, as you know, in the eighties and nineties.

You know, the economies were strong, and I think there was a real there was a real interesting food.

All of a sudden, restaurants exploded from just being your traditional sort of little family run business to all sorts of places.

I then expanded into pubs.

You know, I remember you visiting the Botanical Hotel back in the in the eighties, and you know that was the.

First scary you remember me in the eighties because like I wouldn't want to be remembered probably for what I would have been.

I think I met you in the bar rather than the restaurants, So.

That right, I actually remember who it was with and you reminded me early on.

But it was a good old friend of mine more and Meat from Perth.

I remember that very well.

A great calful character.

So that pub was one of the first sort of hate the term, I don't really like the term ASTRAI puppet.

It was one of the first pubs to sort of move away from booze and move towards being a restaurant.

And of course it was in South Yarra, which is one of the up market suburbs of Melbourne.

Botanical was an iconic hotel and I moved it from a boozer to a fabulous restaurant, actually one restaurant of the year, and you know, it's sort of really sort of opened up my eyes to what could be possible.

And I thought, so, you know what, it's not bad this business.

It's not like the old days, you know, working around in the old pub.

It's you know, things are a bit more exciting and I could apply my sort of global skills, you know, I'd become you know, I was really a marketeer, and I was able to look at restaurants as brands but apply a strong sense of hospitality to it, but making sure that we could be really innovative.

What could restaurants be in Australia.

It was a really formative time, so you know, I was always thinking about, well, how can we change the business model to make it even more exciting.

To to recognize that Australia's demography was changing, you know, we you know, if you look at our cities, we weren't just made up of Italians and Greeks anymore.

Where you know, there was a huge Asian population growing and there was other parts of the world that are immigranted to Australia, and you know, we had an amazing sort of multicultural blend in our cities.

And of course then technology came around.

You know, if you look at social media, it really changed the way restaurants worked.

Gave people an intimate access into how we work as a restaurant.

There was no more secrets anymore, and I think that was that's really changed the face of restaurants again.

And then when you combine it with the you know, we talked about pubs.

It sort of happened a bit in Sydney, but it definitely happened in Melbourne where pubs went from being these little places you can have a countermill to and they basically turned into gaming venues.

Now, you know, people, young people hadn't nowhere to go anymore.

Like in mind, I used to go to the local pub to meet people and socialize and so forth.

Well god forbid, you might even go to a disc go, right, did you remember those?

I'd certainly do.

And so all those places sort are pretty much gone.

Licensing laws that changed, you know, people's interests had changed, and people wanted something better out of their experience and and of course then add the powerful flux of social media, the ability to be able to go in and take a photo and you know, put a favorite dish up on the internet and et cetera and talk about it if you average people became influencers.

But what it did was it democratized and opened up this restaurant.

Experience, made it all acceptable and available and accessible and.

Available accessible, and all of a sudden, restaurants became meeting places.

They filled that void that I think pubs and clubs and nightclubs that sort of left behind.

And that was very exciting because it also you know, you know, if you look at the last thirty or so years, has been this huge wealth generation, so people could afford to go to restaurants almost every day of the week.

If you look at my kids, they're out to restaurants, you know, five times, six times a week, and the rest of the time they're ording food on either sook.

No one cooks anymore, and so that was also a powerful change in the industry.

And if you look at Sydney today and you look at Melbourne today, their tourism mix has changed.

People now see food tourism, whether it's national tourism or international tourism for food, for food.

So and that's why today you've got thousands and thousands of different types of restaurants, all kinds, and in fact, to be honest, I think Sidney and Melbourne are two of the greatest food cities in the world.

You know, you've got to Italy and because they've got such amazing food culture, but it's about Italian food.

So you struggle to find you a sushi restaurant or anything else other than Italian food.

Now they do its same in Athens, same in France, at same in Tokyo.

You know, I lived in Japan for three years, you know, so I love sushi, but after a couple of years, you know you're hangering for a burger, right, Yeah.

And I think that's what's amazing about our cities that we didn't have that sort of history tying us down.

Young countries, young cities, very energetic, amazing multicultural mix.

All of a sudden, we've got thousands upon thousands of restaurants today.

Do you think in Melbourne, I mean, your roots are Melbourne, but you know it's Sydney.

But just in terms of Melbourne, do you think that Melbourne culturally and in terms of the way people live their lives is it has become over the last ten to fifteen years more interested in eating out or less well.

Melbourn's don't different to anywhere else except for the weather a little less now, you know, Melbourn's what we call a sort of European style cool climate city.

I refer to as a cool climbers It has very distinct you know, seasonal lady to it.

We don't have amazing beaches and you know, great outdoor experiences necessarily some of them, I disagree.

So it's a great food city.

So people entertained by going out right you know, the weekends the city is really up and going, you meaning the CBD in the CD and the restaurants are full and they're busy and people having lunch and so forth.

So it sort of lends itself, you know, to climatically to that sort of you know, socializing now, you know, but Sydney is becoming like that.

You know, Sydney has great outdoor experiences when the weather is fine.

You know, everyone's down at Bondai Beach.

But look at what's happened to Bondai Beach.

I mean there's restaurants everywhere.

You know, pubs have been turning into restaurants.

There's cafes everywhere, and people are sitting on the sidewalk.

You know, fifteen years ago you weren't allowed to put a chair and the table out on the footpath, right Yep.

Today it's very European, very cost impoltant.

Because Sunday just gone.

I actually went down the fingall walked on with the finger Warf there and it was packed.

Most of the restaurants were packed.

I just just had nothing to do.

I just sort of just walked down and see what it was.

But it was a nice day.

It was literally packed.

That's finger Woarf at Cydney's Willm Loo and I got a bit of surprise.

Maybe I need to get out more.

But you saying that, and I'm wondering to myself, maybe you can answer this question for Melbourne.

Are they are they Melbourne people going to restaurants or are you talking about people coming from overseas saying I come here on holidays and checking Melbourne out.

I want to go on a gastronomical tour.

I'm going to go.

I'm from China, I'm from Tokyo, I'm from wherever America.

I'm going to check out what the restaurants are like.

Is that the go Well, that's there's both.

I mean, you you know, let's talk about city for a second.

I think Sydney's going through a really amazing growth spurt, you know, in terms of footure is really yeah.

Well I think, yeah, well we're up here, so uh and we've come up for a good reason.

I mean, as you know, I've had chinchin here for quite a few years.

So down central are in Surrey Hills, Surrey Hills, and that's been really successful.

And that's an Asian Asian.

Asian sort of time sort of you know, not Asian type place in a beautiful building, the Griffiths to your building.

And so you know, I've seen the change here in Sydney over the years where unfortunately, you know, we had those terrible lockdown laws which you know, I think really decimated the nighttime economy and set back sort of, you know, set back the restaurant industry quite a bit as well as the nighttime industry.

But they're getting above it, you know, they're getting on with it now and you now have a Minister for the night Time economy, and so I think, you know, the powers of be here in Sydney realized what they'd sort of lost by bringing those sort of draconian laws.

Melbourne did the same of course with the lockdowns, you know, a terrible effect on the city.

And then all of a sudden, tourists weren't coming.

Well, you know, you close down the restaurants, You're closed down the cafes, you close down the fresco dining, and yeah, I guess what, the tourist aren't going to come and the locals aren't going to go out.

And if you look at our industry, and I've been sort of championing you know, I've been trying to champion our industry as a country, what we do and how we do it so well on a global basis, because I really do not just say it because you know, I think I'm biased.

I have a little bias.

But you fly all over the world, everyone travels today.

You just need to look at how you know, how expensive a meal is in London today, it's crazy, or in New York or anywhere really for that matter.

Even you got places like miklos A ten years ago, you can't have a cheap meal you can't have a great meal there anymore, and you compare it to what you get here amazing value, amazing breadth and dead Now.

One thing these lockdowns and unfortunately the sort of you know, the licensing lockouts here as well.

They've taught our powers to be is how important food is, how imput the industry is to our cities because they drive tourism.

Yes, of course, who wants to come to a city that closes at six pm?

But that goes back to the mild days when I was a young kid in pubs used to shat at six pm.

I don't want to live like that anymore.

And you have such a beautiful climate here.

I mean even Melbourne.

People criticize the climate down there, but you know it's very moderate compared to say Toronto or New York, where's that's minus thirteen degrees.

No one goes out and has el fresco dining there.

But you look at Melbourne, even in the depths of winter, people sitting down on the street, you know, having a cappuccino and enjoying the thing.

And look at what's happened on the cafe culture today.

Australian cities, even Brisbane and Adelaide, So the Perth, the cafe culture is amazing.

It's very European.

People talk about our coffee banks some of the best in the world.

So I think that I'm very proud of that, having seen it over the decades and having been part of it, played our small role in it right, that we've been able to go from a sort of humble family, you know, Planman's lunch top business two really truly global cities that are streets ahead in some regards in terms of Efinberg.

So you would rate Australian culinary experiences and let's say the major cities are not even the major cities outside of that, you would rate us highly relative to other places in the world, not just for value, not because of the in terms of quality qualities.

Absolutely, in fact, we I mean you don't need to take my word for it.

I was London only just recently talk into one of the biggest operators in Europe and he was telling me that he rates Australian culinary experiences as some of the best of the world.

I think it was a few years ago pre COVID we tourism Australia flew out the world's top fifty Chefs as part of the World's Top fifty Restaurant Awards.

A lot of these chefs had never been to Australia before, and all they could talk about was how outstanding our product is, signed the produce, not just produce, but the restaurants, how beautiful our restaurants are, how innovative they are, how innovative the design is.

How we're prepared to be brave in terms of what our offerings look like.

You know, if you look at Chinchin, for instance, you know they were blown away by a place like Chinchin.

We all take it for granted because you know, we've grown up around Asian food.

But Chinchin was a groundbreaking restaurant, you know, serving thousands of people every day in a very democratized way.

You know, no reservations, queue up, loud music, cocktails Europe, you had to a restaurant there's no music.

Usually you know, they frown upon it.

So I've never really noticed if you're sitting in Italy, if he's sitting in the your Malfie coast and just sort of take a second other than look at the beautiful, amazing coastline.

There's there's no what we call vibe.

There's no energy other than the food itself, and I guess the amazing views.

So Australians have led the way in creating today's restaurant culture globally.

And because people can fly around, because people have the Internet, et cetera, et cetera, they're getting to see what we do and.

Because there's more more able to be showcased.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And you know, Citney now is a very famous city around the world.

Always was, it was a gateway Australia, but it's it's been talked about, not just about its amazing natural beauties anymore.

Now they're talking about this amazing European style culture, the Alfresco dining.

Melbourne was always known for that.

Melbourne's always been known for that because it was a European style city, as I said to you, a city that sort of grew up on its restaurants.

And so I think Melbourne has always had this sort of monicum that it's been the food capital of Australia.

But you know today you can always just about go anywhere in Australia and have a pretty good meal.

So if I go back to your could you just take me through maybe your series of restaurants that you've had, just just for the sake of you know, completeness in this podcast, because you've had a whole stack of them, and just maybe take me back from the Botannic organ just go forward from there.

Yeah, well look after that.

Well, so today we've got about three thousand employees.

Wow, yeah, a three thousand employees.

Wow.

We've got restaurants obviously in Melbourne, Canberra as well as now Sydney, and so we some of the brands yeah, and some of the brands are they're very iconic brands.

Of course, we're very lucky that we've been able to create some amazing restaurants that have really changed the face of dying, certainly in Melbourne.

And then it's you know, as you know, some of these brands are now coming to Sydney.

So you know, after the Botannical of course, which was a phenomenal operation, an amazing brand, you know, introducing sort of gastrode dining into into the sort of vernacular which I think has changed the face of dining in Australian pubs.

You know.

Since then, you know, we we went on to open Chinchin.

Now Chinchin was an incredible restaurant that opened.

It was a very humble little restaurant, it was.

It was.

It was built in this sort of little in Flinders Lane which was a sort of a old schmutter area where the old textile operators all as Jewish guy, Jewish guys used to cut the fabric.

Yeah, and in fact Chinchin was part of a as it was in those days.

It took over an old fabric shop, which, by the way, we did here in Sydney, the Griffiths t Building was owned by an old Jewish merchant and it used to be his textile operators.

A lot of the Jewish merchants are still down there.

Yeah, got a lot of the raid traders down there, that's right, the schmudder meaning rad Trader trader.

That's right.

So we opened up in this sort of textile area which there wasn't a lot of restaurants, and all of a sudden Chinchin.

It's sort of it sort of captured the zeitggast that we were talking about.

You know, people were it was the you know, the Internet had only just sort of really started to kick on and Twitter had just been sort of sort of just come to the fall, and we were really the first restaurant to combine the two, you know, opening up a restaurant at the same time, but using you know, whatever technology that was available to us.

We started putting we were the first to really put photos of food on you know, on the Internet.

And I remember at the time, I was sort of being criticized because, oh, you know, Chris is changing the changing the face of restaurants.

You know, you can't make a booking anymore, and can't book my babysitter, and you know, he's doing silly things like putting pictures of food on the just keep up.

Well, I kept looking out the door and there was a huge que you know, there was something right.

So we were doing something right, you know, and it had sort of it just sort of created this sort of accessibility that people hadn't had it before.

You know.

We we pulled the prices back, so we made the food really affordable, and we made the experience you know, really vibrant, colorful, cool music, amazing cocktails, and it just sort of took off and so changing and I think really then started an amazing showed me what was really happening in our city.

You know that all of a sudden, people just necessarily want to go to a stuff in your restaurant, just sit down and sort of have a very singular experience.

They wanted to do other things.

Some people describe chinging as the sort of night club of restaurants, and you know, it attracted an amazing just an amazing response, not just from local Belberanians, but people from come all over and international people.

I remember walking outside of the restaurant and I was walking past the queue and I thought to myself, that's Cadel Evans and he just won the French Tour de France.

Of course, so good El Evans was the biggest nament in the world at the time, and he's sitting in the que said Cadel Evans.

Yeah.

I said, look, if you if you'd like you said, you know, I said, I'm happy to get your table.

He goes, O, no, no, no, I wouldn't dare jump the queue.

He said, I'm having a great time.

So I'm signing autographs and talking to everyone.

I thought, you know, that's what it's all about.

It's really cool.

I said, here's the biggest sporting star in Australia, just one of the Tour of France.

And I was happy to line up with everyone else and the experience and soak up the experience.

Yeah, so, you know, we moved on after that, and we opened up Baby Pizza, which was another sort of version of democratizing sort of Italian sort of casual pizzas that went crazy.

We opened up a restaurant called Hawker Hall, which was then a sort of a Singapore and Malaysian Hawker market restaurant.

And then now we started thinking, well, we can go beyond casual restaurants, because what we've created these occasual restaurants is an amazing sort of product, but maybe we can translate some of what we're doing to experienceial restaurants.

And I'd had a sort of a bit of a look, I guess maybe whether it's my Greek background or humble workings in a pub, I was never really comfortable with sort of what they call fine dining.

I didn't mind finding I like to go to one every now and then, but I thought we could sort of also democratize top end restaurants, make them a little more friendlier and make them a little more accessible, make the food perhaps a little more simple, a bit more straightforward, and it takes some of that magic that we've created in these casual restaurants.

So we sort of we pushed the boat out a bit by then.

By the way, we'd open Chinch in Sydney and everyone said to me, oh, that's like taking Carles to Newcastle, you know, opening an Asian restaurant in Sydney.

There's a thousand Asian restaurants in Sydney.

But we brought our own stick, as they say, you know, our own sort of magic formula.

It was incredible again, same sort of thing cues down Surry Hills, and you know, people in Sydney took to it.

Just a lot of people in Melbourne took to it.

So then I thought the next challenge for us was to take what we do, as I said, and sort of put it into a sort of more experiential restaurants, you know.

And the next step for us was Society, which was this huge development on the corner of Exhibition Street in Collins Street, which is what they call the Paris end of Melbourne, you know.

And I'm not sure sure what quite the equivalent here is in city, but perhaps Chiefley is around here is around here, right, And it was probably the first and last time you'd ever get a chance to open a restaurant in such an iconic location.

It's the most expensive real estate in Melbourne, and so we took this opportunity, which is quite a risk at the time, to open a destinational restaurant and to call it from a very iconic name, Society.

Society was the first true fine dining restaurant that opened in Melbourne in nineteen twenty three by an Italian family And the reason why I called it Society is I just love the name.

It sort of reflected what we're all about.

You know, we're in this most prominent corner which was all about Society, and so the name really worked.

And as it just so happened, I acquired the old restaurant site called Society, which today is Maison Battat, so it was sort of it sort of worked.

Anyway, we opened the restaurant and we opened it actually five times, so it's the first resident Australia to open five times and close five times because we were trying to open it during COVID, so every time we'd opened the restaurant, you know, teen days later we get locked down.

So we had a bit of a run.

The good thing about it is we had a bit of a run about in terms of practice, so you don't often get to open a restaurant multiple times and survive.

But it really talked about it was a grant, a grand dining room.

It's a beautiful dinning round and if you've been there, and it's stunning dining room.

And it was about taking Melbourne beyond what we had as a city.

We had these amazing sort of casual restaurants that everyone loved and very galitarian sort of restaurants, but this was a this is our top end restaurant, This is our world class reston.

This is a restaurant you would find in New York or London.

At the time, it was the most expensive restaurant ever built in Australia.

So it was a big risk, but it came off and it's been this iconic restaurant that's really you know, talked about all over US raight in fact, talked about internationally, and so that showed to me, well, we can do what we're doing just about any level.

We opened up a Japanese restaurant called Casume.

My love from Japan comes from having lived there.

My daughter was born in Japan, and you know a lot of people find creating and running these restaurants very intimidating.

It's tough because you need really highly skilled chefs that come mostly from overseas, so they're not readily available here in Australia and so but I took on that challenge, you know, and Cosume was another restaurant that I think showed that a humble, young Greek boy from Geelong could actually open up a Japanese restaurant.

So, you know, the funny thing is the only restaurant I've never really opened up is a Greek restaurant, which I'm about to do next year.

So I thought I'll put everyone today is that Chris Lacers can eventually own a Greek restaurant.

So that'll be next year.

But I guess the next step for us was, well, why don't we do something that's very New York, very sexy Because my time in IBM, I spent quite a lot of years in New York.

I love those sort of really dark, brooding SOHO type restaurants.

You know where the gangsters used to hang out, they say, right, Sparks Steakhouse and Carbone.

Of all these places, I thought there's always something magical about that, and of course, there's a very famous restaurant you're called The Grill, which was previously called the Four Seasons, where you know, it's most famous customer was with John F.

Kennedy and they still have served today Jack's Pie.

Right.

But an amazing restaurant, really iconic restaurant, right, I said, well, why do we do something like that.

Let's let's take that amazing sort of Italian New York Soho vibe, but combine it with something in the Austrains love, which is steak and Melbourne Haton really had a dedicated sort of steakhouse at the time.

So we created this new restaurant called Grill.

American name Grill being a steakhouse, great name, and Americana, of course says the Italian word for American.

Right.

Everybody's saying, oh, what sort of strange name is that?

I said, well, it's it's a blend of American culture with a little bit of European sensibility, right.

And it's Inland's Lane, isn't It's Inland Lane as well.

It's very hard to get into.

I can tell you well, before you're coming on the show and before you have not downstairs, but I have to interrupt.

I've tried again.

There a couple of times I'm just randomly down in Melbourne for work and I'm just I think I'll just get something neat.

Oh my god, Like you can't just just turn up because it's so busy, so patronized.

Is crazy, it's amazing.

So you know, I thought I'd never see another chinchin and and Griddle Americana, albeit it is a different restaurant.

It just went off.

I remember my phone went into I had to turn my phone off in the first couple of weeks.

My phone went into meltdown and it just really touched on something that again we hadn't seen before in Melbourne.

And funny enough, you know, you know you're talking about not being able to get in.

So you know, over the years now I look at our sort of our demographic clientele Sydney startus.

It's literally every Sydney person that comes down whilst I go to Griddle Americana, and I had a lot of city people say to me because we're at the bottom of one a one, which is like the equivalent to Chiffley here.

Yeah, I went officely want to own columns, right, yeah, right, we have we think or cub I have another business there yet.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of very prominent Sydney people have offices in one I want you know, Morgan Stanley has an office there, et et cetera.

So you know they'd come down and they go, wow, this is like a Sydney restaurant in Melbourne.

I said, that's a funny thing.

I said, I've heard that quite a few times.

It's an interesting interpretation.

Now people see things and I think what they're sort of trying to say to me is it's it's a really glamorous restaurant.

You go really well in Sydney.

Right, So the hunt was on.

I thought, well why not, you know, let's try and find an iconic location in Sydney.

Everyone said to me, you'd never get Griffith's Tea.

We end up having to buy the building.

By the way, it had been vaking forty two years and every real station said, look, he's never selling it buildings never, but it's just going to stay fake.

Na.

Well, we managed to get it and as it turned out, the same owners of one oh one, which is the Common World Super fun I owned this building.

Well they didn't know ow the whole building because I used to a part of it.

So yeah, where you are now in the top of the roof, I sold that.

I sold it to them.

I've been in there for twenty one years, twenty two years.

It's a beautiful building.

It's the old Countess Building, Yes, old Cornice headquarters.

It is an iconic building.

It's a crossroad from Chiffley Tower.

It's beautifully central for everything.

I own my Yellow Big Road businesses in this building as well.

And I've been waiting for someone to set up a restaurant down there made for so long.

I'm so glad you did it.

I couldn't believe.

I couldn't believe it been vacant right in the heart of Well.

That's Specsavers and a few other bits.

Was there for a while Savers and then but obviously because my cousin who owns the restaurant across their own right, he is called District and one called the grand I know the boys.

Yeah, yeah, Well Johnny's my cousin from the same not Sam Sam Sam Sam Lebanese, but Johnny's I didn't know you related, you know, related, And he told me that he had a crack at it.

But then he said he walked away and he said you were coming, that's right, And I said, that's great.

We need a good restaurant like that here in Sydney.

Yeah, well to me, you've done a great job.

I'll have to turn you.

Thank you.

It's amazing.

It's like I just I can't wait to go and actually dine there.

But it and your staff they seem in the lift like I must have been invited twenty times so far to come in for the soft openings as you have various opiens or whatever you call it, and but they're amazing.

They're all plied.

You're going on the lift because you know they might have to get a lift, a whole lot of boos or whatever they going down to thing always very I mean I thought, how does his blade get these people would be so well trained.

Well, that's there's not normal.

That's the sense of hospitality that we have.

So as at the back of our house, it's not even at the front of house.

Well, so it doesn't matter which part of the business you're in, you have to meet certain training standards with us, and so I expect chefs to be just as well focused on saying yes and making sure the customer experiences spot on as I do.

We our front of house people, so that's always been the way we train people.

And we've employed nearly three hundred young kids here.

So that's all in this building that's just square.

Yep.

Yeah, wow, I see a lot of young kids.

Actually, finely enough.

And we're going to be open seven days a week, lunch and dinner.

Oh, seven days a week.

That's amazing.

And we're going to be cooking all day.

So when the we're actually serving breakfast in the morning.

Yeah, we're doing a European style, you know, cafe and so, and then we'll run into lunch servers and so it'll be open all day.

We won't close the kitchen all so if you come down, say three o'clock and you want a quick quick food or food, it'll be there.

And then go into the evening of course.

So it's it's a big operation.

It's a lot of shifts to cover.

But I'm glad to I'm glad to hear you say that, because you know, the first thing I said to the start, I said, we've got to get to know everyone in the building.

Yep.

So I said, I want you to go floor by floor.

They probably annoyed you.

As you said, they have sent invitations like lots of them.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well, you know, we're trying to cover our basics, right, and I said, let's get to know everyone.

I want to know everyone by their name, all right, because I remember Sam and Johnny they knew everyone.

Yeah around here they do.

Yeah, and they had an intimate friendship with a lot of them.

Right yeah, great guys, right, great guys.

Well they're not dead there, they're still going and I love the way they operated.

I thought it was really you know, it's a touch of the old school, right yeah.

Yeah, and they're not there anymore.

They still got the cafe.

But you know, I wanted to bring our own sort of Melbourne hospitality.

But it's not.

It's not much different to what they had before that.

Yeah, so what are you going to be serving?

To tell us a little bit about the menu?

So you know, as we talked about, it's an Italian steakhouse, right, so beautiful handmade past us.

We've got about sixteen different stakes on so it's a huge state program and that means it's types of steaks, types of pipes and stake So we've got three different sections.

We've got what we call our specialty steaks, which is dishes that we've sort of created like a shadow by on with pepper sauce.

We've got a beef pize.

Yeah, we've got a beef pizzelor which is a beautiful eye fill it that we cook in the wood oven.

We've got a wood oven downstairs, and then we sort of emersed it into a rich tomato sauce with beautiful olives, a little bit of oregano.

It's a very Mediterranean dishri a little bit of a Greek Italian dish that one I think, but it's been super popular in Melbourne.

Wrong.

And then we've got all our steaks on the bone, so you're be able to have your bis decker and your tea bone and so forth.

And then we've got our individual steaks so you've able to come in a quick eye feel it if you want.

You're be able to have a minute steak at the bar for thirty nine to fifty including chips.

That's amazing.

We're throwing the chips in.

We'll be able to have a burger at the bar.

So we've got this amazing bar which seats about thirty forty people.

And then we've got another little bar section, which it's another fifty So we're using the bar as a sort of a quick drop in if you want have a quick glass of wine and you can be in and out in sort of twenty thirty minutes for under thirty dollars.

We did that in Melbourne and it creates a real vibrancy around the bar, right because not everyone has time to sit down, sit down, munch.

So we've got sort of two elements to the restaurant.

We've got that sort of bar element which is going to be really cool, and then they'll morph into an actual bar in the late afternoons.

You have lit up the Chieffley's building.

I mean, this building has just literally changed overnight.

Well, that's what restaurants do.

That's why restaurants are really important.

They do change the face of the building, especially a building like this.

And so, and can I ask a question, how is it you know, we've seen lots of restaurants, but you've been around for a long time.

Most of your restaurants are still going and successfully so and you're going from strength to strength.

What is it that marks the difference between someone like Chris Lucas and other operators who maybe great great people, intelligent people, hard working people, great concepts, but it just doesn't last.

What's the difference.

Well, so it's a little bit like i'd bemoan a bit there, you know, the lack of sort of what I call traditional leadership in our country.

You know, leaders today sometimes aren't what I defined as a sort of true leader.

You know, look at the great leaders that we had over over the decades.

You know, great people on Bob Hawk and you know Apple Keating and John Howard and all these guys, right, you know, the natural leaders, right, but the leaders for a very good reason because they believed in something right and you might not always agree, but you knew where they stood and where they came from.

It's not too much different in what we do in my business.

There's a couple of cornerstones that are very a synonymous with Lucas restaurants.

With my restaurants.

If you know that I'm going to go to a Chris Lucas restaurant, I'm going to hopefully get pretty good, if not great service.

And that's something that's uncompromising for us.

You're always going to get great value for money.

Now, when I say great value, for money.

I mean that it doesn't matter what the price of the item is, even if it's an expensive bottle of wine or an expensive dish.

It's great venge for money because it's a great product.

There's been no compromise.

We've been working on our stake program for Grill Americano Cyney for nearly eighteen months.

Well, so we've been working with our supplies.

We've gone out to the farmers.

You know, we've been working with them to make sure that we get the right breed and the right cuts and the right cattle.

And you know that's time and money.

You know, we've had chefs up here working with our suppliers for that period of time.

Same with the seafood industry.

You know, we've been you know, out We've got this massive oyster bar that we've built downstairs.

I hope you like oysters.

So we're going to present about twelve to fourteen different types of oysters, which no restaurant does in Australia to be honest, other than my restaurants in Melbourne, because it's a big commitment to run that sort of program.

So you know, so with the Chris Lucas Restaurant, you get uncompromising quality and great service.

Now, if you get those two things right in a restaurant business or any business, to be honest, I think you're halfway there.

And then you know, I believe in making sure that we're constantly challenging ourselves.

So today's restaurant looks very different to what a restaurant looks like five years ago, look like ten years ago, and what a restaurant might look like five years from today.

And so for me, there are no rules in that regard.

What succeeds today doesn't necessarily mean it's a blueprint for the future.

So I'm constantly thinking about what do we change in our restaurants design wise, product wise, offering wise, so that we can always be on the leading edge of innovation.

And it's important to be innovative because tastes change the restaurant businesses, not judition to the fashion business.

Things change constantly, especially in today's world, and what's cool or sort of you know, trend on trend today, not that we're trying to always be on trend, but you know, what works today might not work five years from today.

And so I think that with me, you're always going to get something new, always going to get something hopefully exciting.

Well, I have to say what I've seen it the fit out so far, and that my team are going to put some stuff up on to support this podcast.

They're going to get down and get some footage for what I've seen it.

It is very beautiful inside.

I mean I don't mean over the top lavish.

I mean beautiful like colors, lots of colors, beautiful, lots of I can I can sort of I haven't touched of it.

I can sort of feel fabric as.

A royal blue that we run through the venue is about this royal blue.

Clo I can see the royal blue in the fabric and it feels like it looks very tactile.

It looks like what I touch very much.

You've done a great job, mate, and I appreciate your appreciate your coming in and having a discussion with them me today.

But probably importantly you've done your dad proud.

Mate.

Well, that's important.

It is important.

It is important my late mother and my Lafe fell.

She'll be very happy and.

Your mother's also passed so well.

You've done them both proud, and especially from the humble beginnings that they all started with and your pool and yeah, yeah, for both sides.

You know you've done them well.

And thank god we're getting some not that Sydney people can't do it, but thank god we're getting people from inter state like you coming up here and bringing up into Sydney what Sydney now needs.

Well.

I think that's the next phase for Australia.

You know, where you know, is there's something great that's been created in Melbourne or Adelaide or why shouldn't it be that's shared it around?

You know, we don't need to sort of all be stuck in our own backyard, so to speak.

If you go to America, you know, if something succeeds in New York, before you know it, it's in about thirty other states.

And I think that's a great thing.

I think that's where we're getting to in Australia, where we're not so parochial anymore.

We think about Australia and as I said to you, I think Australia is a great food country, great to see made