FEATURE: CAFE TRENDS

Coffee, koftas and clever solutions

A good brew, keeping on top of food trends and labour-saving devices can put your cafe a step ahead, writes Grant Jones.

CAFES ARE PROVING to be one of the more popular F&B offerings in clubs as they hit the mark on several levels, several times a day and are an attraction for all ages. From fresh juices at breakfast to light lunches and afternoon cake and coffee, opening a new cafe or reinvigorating an old one can create a buzz about your venue.

Cafes in clubs have become so popular that Nestle Professional has created an easy-to-drink coffee, BUONDI, positioning the brand to create “a more urban and stylish aesthetic” and targeting the consumer who is seeking an enhanced coffee experience in a club or pub.

“The refreshed BUONDI range is more contemporary and premium, yet approachable,” says Joanna Yuen, Nestlé Professional’s master barista. “The new positioning was created specifically for Australian coffee drinkers, with pubs and clubs in mind, in order to elevate their coffee experiences within these venues.”

While Drummoyne Sailing Club has rolled out a Sydney Harbourside coffee cart on weekends, members and guests at Club Pine Rivers have been flocking to the Moreton Bay venue’s refreshed Hidden Gem Cafe, unveiled following renovations last year. Once known as Treasures Coffee Shop, the Hidden Gem Cafe was transformed into a cafe with full cooking facilities and new menu that now delivers hot chips, nachos and $8 snack boxes, alongside a seafood offering.

“People have told us they really love the new cafe because we are stepping up the food that we were previously offering, and we can keep it open longer at night,” said Rebecca Barker of the club, which picked up Best Bowls Club at Keno and Clubs Queensland 2022 Awards for Excellence.

Drummoyne Sailing Club has rolled out a harbour-side coffee cart on weekends.

At Brothers Cairns, the brand new Fratellis cafe (see p22) is attracting praise far and wide. Brothers Group general manager Shane Fitzgerald said the project had transformed the club.

“Our research identified the need to better cater for our target market, and a new modern café offering was essential to this,” he says.

Faster food, fatter profits

Clubs are constantly looking for ways to improve their food offering and, at the same time, looking for ways to improve efficiencies. One example is the display of fresh bread rolls, wraps and panini which can be easily taken from a food display cabinet and are ready to serve within minutes. But how many times have you seen the curled corners of a sandwich or dehydrated lettuce peeking from a wrap?

While traditional food and cake displays suffice, there are now unique vertically integrated designs such as Stoddart’s Airex Food Display which supplies cool air to each shelf by a specially designed ventilation system. This reduces air velocity around the food which means your club food will look and taste fresher for longer.

“With cafes in clubs only getting bigger and bigger, we are finding an increase in demand on ways to display different types of food,” says Michael Smart, national product manager for Airex.

Airex food displays are a great option for ever-evolving cafés in clubs.

“Refrigerated food displays are fantastic. However, not all food is best kept and displayed below five degrees. Chocolate for example is best kept and displayed between 18-20 degrees. The Airex range of food displays are a great option for the ever-evolving café scene in our clubs.”

Cafes offer a great opportunity to improve a club’s bottom line but limiting yourself to coffee and cake or sandwiches and bottled juices is not necessarily the best. Add to that an extra labour load for staff, keeping an eye on costs and making sure the quality is there are all challenges in the current environment.

But there are solutions. While an average coffee will be marked up an average 300 per cent, fresh-pressed fruit juice can be as good as 700 per cent for oranges and be marked up to 1600 per cent for something like mint and watermelon.

Priestley’s vegan carrot cake ticks a few boxes.

“If cafes want to make coffee the hero, they are missing out on potential profit,” says Kuvings business manager Clint Facey. Kuvings offers a variety of commercial kitchen equipment, from commercial juicers to blenders. A starting-price juicing machine comes in at just under $2000 with that cost earned back in less than a month, based on a conservative 10 juice sales a day. Cheaper seasonal produce can also be offered as a weekly juice for customers, with fruit at a dollar or two a kilo turning into a quick profit for clever cafe operators.

“Usually the feedback is phenomenal, the customers love it, the person who made the decision to have it, loves it. And it doesn’t just appeal to the older demographic either, kids love it as well,” he says.

Kuvings can also make nutmilk, with the leftover pulp used in baked goods or protein balls, and tomato passata for pizza bases or, using a separate attachment, fresh-fruit gelato.

A starting price juicing machine can cover its own cost in less than a month.

“The yield you get from our machine, the ease of use, the price tag, the warranty, the cleaning, etc, we are just leagues above our competitors,” he says.

Vacuum smoothies will be the next trend, says Facey, with the produce loaded into the jug, a lidded dome automatically lowering, then a vacuum pumps and seals it for 7-10 seconds, before blending the produce into a super-smooth smoothie with no sign of oxidisation.

Priestley’s Gourmet Delights, Australia’s largest manufacturer of cakes and desserts for the foodservice industry, takes all the effort out of cakes and dessert at club cafe.

“The fact our entire product range across more than 120 options is frozen from bake, travels extremely well and is pre-portioned to be removed by the portion whilst still frozen at venue level has been invaluable to the end user,” says sales manager Jarrad Buckley.

Effectively it’s a labour-free, premium bakery/café and restaurant product that reduces and controls shrinkage as opposed to a fresh product.

Kade Cohen’s convenient vegetarian falafel used in a salad.

“Our product has also reduced the risk in the kitchen without the need to use knives for cutting, and has provided consistency in terms of quality, portion size and healthy profit margins as every cake delivered is the same quantity and size every time.”

Priestley’s also offer a wide range of gluten- and dairy-free cakes as well as vegan products.

“We are proud to represent the quality product our team have created especially in the dietary space, and many would not even know they have just consumed a gluten-free or vegan product which allows venues to cater for everyone, an increasing challenge to the industry as a whole,” he says.

Cool runnings

At Bankstown Sports, the club has gone all out to attract coffee lovers introducing its own café, Cornerstone, a couple of years ago with the popular venue featuring an in-house coffee roaster. In addition to the coffee and cakes on offer at Cornerstone, one of the other main dessert attractions is San Churro, the franchised chocolateria offering a variety of the Spanish doughnuts known as churros that are hand-crafted in-house. That sits alongside a Baskin-Robbins offering.

With the ice-cream market expected to grow, it’s worth considering investing in the pre-frozen treat.

At the recently refurbished Burpengary Community Club, The Wattle Café serves a dazzling array of pastries and desserts, including cakes, muffins, croissants and banana bread, baked in-house. And in the steamy climate of Queensland, it also has a gelato bar.

When it comes to frozen sweet treats, Aussies love their ice cream with the category worth a staggering $1.9 billion in 2021. But labour-intensive scooping and a wide range of flavours can be a headache for some club venues and soft serve machines tend to offer a product that doesn’t last the distance.

A few decades ago, Riva revolutionised ice cream delivery by enabling the fast delivery of smooth, real dairy made ice cream with their patented sealed container technology. Today, clubs across Australia use Riva Ice Cream Dispensers to offer pre-frozen, real ice cream (not soft serve!) with patrons enjoying the same smooth results every time – even during peak hours.

Single serve will save on labour.

The ice-cream market is also projected to grow by more than 4.3 per cent this year, according to Ibis World. Now that’s a scoop!

There are plenty of food and beverage options that a club can provide through a café offering. And with so many revenue raisers on the menu, it’s no wonder that proactive clubs are adding a café offer to their F&B options.