On May 1 st some of the OrderMate team and their guests attended GROW Assembly at the fabulous Melba Spiegeltent in Collingwood. The GROW team is a collective of hospitality professionals who not only inspire and share knowledge but also have created a great forum to connect with other like-minded individuals in the industry.
From small cafés to fine diners, coffee roasters to destination restaurants, both locally and around the world, the GROW team has had a range of experiences within the hospitality industry. Aside from simply the product-knowledge based information it was clear from attending the event that the core of this collective is to ask questions in order to push our beloved industry forward. Questions such as; Why are our guests dining with us? What is their goal for the evening? What is our tone or language with our guests? How do we decipher a P&L report? or more importantly how do I write a budget for my business idea?
Some of these great questions were answered via the variety of different guest speakers. We learnt from Sharon Flynn (Wild Fermenter) that food is medicine, Angie Giannakodakis (Restauranteur) expressed the importance of eye contact and Sebastian Crowther (Master Sommelier) taught us that hard work always pays off. Crowther encouraged us to actively engage in our own training in order to continuously raise the bar. It was this holistic approach to the GROW event that truly inspired and captivated the audience throughout the day.
We heard Nolan Hirte’s (Proud Mary’s Coffee Roasters) stories of his quest to change the coffee industry and the challenges he continues to face achieving this, all with the undertone message of “Eat Good, Drink Good, Loosen up and enjoy life!”. The mix of legendary hospitality greats continued with Kevin Donovan (Restauranteur) showing us the importance of a great point of sale system and explained how so many areas of your business link into this. A talk the team at OrderMate are all too familiar with! It was Joshua ‘Josh’ Elias (Alquimie magazine) who encouraged us to remain relevant and to keep the conversation open and honest. The most inspiring part of the day was hearing about Dan Hunter’s (Restauranteur) continued determination to learn, his commitment to change and his belief in work ethic being one of the main reasons for his level of success. These messages are not only relevant to the future generation of hospitality professionals but every single person in the room. In the words of Sarah Lemke (Master Baker) “The goal is not to be the best, the goal is to make everything better” which was not only the resounding message of the day but certainly something each and every one of us can apply to our everyday lives.
Thank you GROW team for such an inspiring day we look forward to sharing the next event with you! If you’d like to see more please click on the video below:
G R O W May 2016 from GrowAssembly on Vimeo.