About the Tyrant Group

 

Media Release - Kylie Simpson - 13th March 2010

 

We would like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves, our ideas and where our future is heading.  Our thoughts and imagination are the only real limits to our possibilities...............

We are sisters Kylie & Shonel Simpson and we are two young restauranteurs on the Gold Coast on a journey to light up the Gold Coast dining scene.   We are born and breed 5th generation Gold Coast girls.  Our relatives had 700 acres of crops and cattle in the Brisbane valley, and were the first family to start lot feeding cattle.  Our grandparents would actually record the river levels of the Brisbane River for the Brisbane City.   They would send their cattle on the train to Railway Street in Southport and my grandfather would herd his cattle to their own slaughter yard on the outskirts of silver bridle, they owned 7 butcher shops, 2 on Nerang St, 1 at Burleigh, 1 at Narrowneck, 1 at Musgrave Hill, and 1 at Chirn Park.  Our relatives of Melroses actually had 9 familys living in the 1 street of Jonston St, Southport, where our mother and the both of us were born.  The house is still there to this day , Im not sure for how much longer untill it is developed.

The family eventually sold their farm, slaughter yard and butcher shops and our grandfarther opened his own butcher shop in Southport in North St called  “Melrose Meats” I actually remember playing hide and seek behind the  pig and cattle carcuses in the butcher shop coolroom with my cousins.   Our uncle worked in the family butcher shop and is still a butcher at Mount Tamborine to this day.

 

So we definetly come from a hard working family background, and are very privelged to have that local history within our family.  I havent even touched on my grandmothers or mothers work, but that is another story for another day!  They too our inspiration of successful women we look up to.

So I guess somewhat  some how our heritage is reflected in what we do today being restauranteurs.   Our hard work and passion for the industry has given us a reputation which many in the industry admire.  We love what we do, we are good at what we do and we will be doing it well into the future.  Why do we love the restaurant industry you may ask?  What isn’t there to love!  There is the beautiful food, fine wine, the socialising with guests and then there’s the drama, the rush, the stress, the hard work, the long hours, the staff hiccups.....oh yes we love it all!

I Kylie started in the industry over 12 years ago when our parents bought Sipz at Main Beach in Tedder Ave.  I was waitressing while studying Environmental Health Science at Griffith University,  I became addicted to work, working nights and on weekends, any shifts I could get,  I fell in love with my first waitressing job, it was in my blood.  The money was good and the social life was amazing, then one day my owner boss announced he was selling.   I went racing home to tell the family about the latest main beach gossip!  Our parents being pharmacists already having a love of cooking, food, beer, wine & coffee jumped at the the opportunity for another business venture, and so they bought it.  I deferred university, Shonel worked in the family business after school and on weekends, mum left the pharmacy to learn how to waitress and Allan our stepfather kept an eye on the chefs and would do some cooking when at all ever possible.  By the way might I just mention Allan is truly one of the best cooks we know, he is unbelievable, there is nothing better then going to our parents house for dinner, my mouth is watering now!!  He actually learnt how to cook when he went to the army in his teens and would cook for the army base.

So Sipz was our first introduction to restaurant life, I’m not saying it was easy..... call it a Baptism of fire, there was alot of blood, sweat and tears, but we all relished in our new venture, we all had alot of success, and learned something new about the restaurant industry everyday.

After a year our parents sold the successful business, and Shonel and I were rewarded with a nice wee bonus for all our hard work. They had bought the run down cafe and we had turned it into one of the best in the strip, there were over 18 other food operators in the street at that time a real dining hub on the gold coast,  and so our journey began. 

With my little pot of money in the bank I was determined to buy into the next family business and that I did.  3 months later after the sale of Sipz we moved to the corporate sector and bought a cafe under 50 Cavill Av in Surfers Paradise.
 
We had moved from a 7 day week restaurant breakfast, lunch and dinner, to a extremely busy 5 day a week corporate cafe with no night work, we were on to something here all the perks of the industry but with a life on the side.  Once again after a year my parents and I sold that business for a nice wee profit.  My parents taught me about business, about the bottom line, profit and losses, payroll, etc etc ......the downside of restaurant life, but still with this education behind me, I was extremely grateful.

In this time my sister had finished school and entered the corporate world of I.T.  her job took her to Melbourne.  She travelled the world with her career and still to this day is somewhat a computer whiz.

Back on the G.C my parents had experienced enough of the restaurant industry , they were looking to retire,  the restaurant game is a tough long one , but for me it had turned into everything it ran through my veins.

This was to be my career, so university was never to see me again I was going to buy run down restaurants and build them up and sell them after a year and move on to the next.  Goodbye “university” hello “restaurant owner”. 

And so began the journey,  my next business I was to own was “Cafe Seabank”. This was another corporate cafe and yes again after a year, bang, sold!

However, something was missing.  It was the frantic pace of owning a 7 day restaurant, breakfast, lunch & dinner just like the first one we began back at Tedder Ave.  Everybody thought I was mad, but no I needed this.  I wanted a restaurant not a cafe. 

I found my next great potential business in Cafe Magic at Nobby Beach I extensively gutted and renovated the site and turned it into the famous Barchino. Awards were won, and I fell pregnant. 

I have always been hands on in all of my restaurants. What was I to do, I said “ I can’t have a day off to have a baby”. And so I researched the life of a working mother, however before my baby boy was born, one of the most traumatic events occurred in my life, I received a phone call from the building manager of where Barchino was situated at 1am in the morning to inform me, that my restaurant was on fire and that he had called the fire brigade, I was 6 months pregnant and was just told the worst news of my life, when I arrived at Barchino, I was in shock there was 4 fire trucks, news crews, police, public, staff and investigators.  The entire restaurant we had only 8 months earlier renovated and built up to a booming successful restaurant burnt to a crisp, not a glass left, not a fork left, nothing was reckonisable........I did not know how we would recover from this, might I just say now for those of you who are underinsured here is a lesson to be learnt, we were $150K under insured, who would ever thought a brand new refridgerator bought would be wired incorrectly and ignite a fire which would melt the gas regulator and meter positioned next to the fridge and in turn create a enormous gas fire blow torch setting everything alight in its way, not me thats for sure!  So off to the bank I went to borrow more funds to get my baby up from the rubble.  8 weeks we built it up from scratch and opened the doors again, but at the same time my baby boy came 7 weeks early and was in a premature ward, and so sadly Barchino was put on the market, I had another baby to look after who is the man in my life now, he puts a smile on my face everyday he awakes, mummys little boy !!!!

I was a stay at home mum for 6 months but my feet were so itchy, I would look for restaurants to buy every weekend, I would eat at every new cafe and restaurant popping up on the coast.  There had to be a way to work my passion and be the best mother to my baby. 

I  had heard through the grape vine that after a couple of changes in owners Cafe Seabank was back on the market as cheap as chips it was being sold for less then I bought it the first time, but I needed a business partner, someone I could trust and who was just as good as me in the industry.   I was to lure my sister Shonel out of her IT career to the restaurant game.  We were to own and run restaurants together, and so the partnership began. 

This was us, what a team, we were going to work on being the best in our field, have the best food, have the best service and have some of the best restaurant. Determination and passion would get us there.  We are best friends, we fight, we cry, we laugh, we work hard but most importantly we do this together.

We bought Cafe Seabank back with our goal to build it up and sell it after a year to build up enough funds to buy our gem,  and so we found a site at Coolangatta and now 3 years later we still have Bellakai,  and I also have a little girl who was born when we built Bellakai, she is my angel, she keeps me grounded.  Bellakai makes us proud it enabled us to open a second restaurant , which is Perle.

Perle has exceeded our expectations our gut instincts were right if you are good at something you can do it anywhere!  Perle wasn’t going to be “the one” it just fell into our laps and we could not refuse.   It has became the restaurant to be seen at and to see.  We have beautiful food, exceptional service and fine wine.

We have won numerous awards over  the last few years with our restaurants and we are so proud of all of our staff that have helped us accomplish these accaliads over the years.   Our staff are a addition to our family, they mean the world to us, they share our passion!!!

 

We are always eating at new restaurants and enjoy eating at our favourite restaurants, whether its our local hidden gem tucked away out of surburbia, or a chef hat awarded restaurant  in other cities, we never stop learning from other restauranteurs.  “ Do common things, uncommonly well” .

 

With doing what Shonel and I love you are forever coming up with new creative ideas and a strong passion to try and educate, capture and invite diners to experience what we are so lucky to do everyday in enjoying and mesmerising ourselves in new fresh flavours, smells, tastes and textures.  We want to revitalise the dining scene you only live once so why not push boundries........ we want to create different restaurants with different moods with a different attitude towards dining, do something original not follow the crowds. 

 

Risk I hear you say hell yeah but isn’t that what business is all about.  It’s what I believe makes some more successful than others, from a little spark may burst a mighty flame.
Shonel and I no longer build restaurants up and sell them we now hold on to our businesses and market them all together with our face behind them as we are owner operators and regulars expect nothing but the best and that we provide to them. Mist is our latest project but secretly you know we wont stop there, watch this space to see our next project coming to you soon in 2011, the gossip has begun.................xxx

 

Trust in what you love,
continue to do it,
And it will take you
where you need to go.................