Ten years ago, Christopher Thé stepped away from a long career as a chef in the fine dining scene to start his own business pursuing a passion for cakes, pastries and coffee.
Today he’s the founder and owner of Black Star Pastry with four shopfronts.
Looking back to when he first started, he never anticipated such a challenging road ahead.
“I just wanted to make the things that I loved from my cooking career and restaurant days, like a really well-cooked apple tarte tatin or caramelised puff pastries, and I loved braising lamb shanks,” said Mr Thé.
He made the risky choice to put all his eggs in one basket to get the business started.
The famed strawberry watermelon cake. Source: Supplied
With two young children under the age of one, Thé approached his dad - an Indonesian migrant with a small business of his own- and borrowed his entire retirement fund.
“I decided I wanted a balanced life and I always wanted a shop… so with 14 years of cooking under my belt, I was pretty confident,” he said.
The week he opened, the Global Financial crisis struck, which Mr Thé can only describe as “terrifying”.
Despite the economic challenges, his delicious pastries drew a large and loyal following among many locals and brought new challenges by way of rapid growth.
He says he needed to employ new people but struggled finding staff that matched his skill and intensity.
Creating a happy workplace culture is core to any business's success. Source: Supplied
“So the natural thing to do is to go, ‘well I’ll just work harder and you guys just support me’,” he said.
“But eventually I was working from 2am to 10pm every day and that’s just unsustainable.”
This took a huge toll on his body. Thé says it could have led to one bad decision sinking the entire business.
“So that was hard and I almost had a physical breakdown… I must have been so exhausted that my body felt comatose and I couldn’t move,” he said.
This forced him to rethink his business strategies, as he learnt to put systems in place, helping him work smarter, rather than just working harder.
Since then, he’s been able to move from producing 60 slices of his iconic strawberry watermelon cake to 6000 in a single day, based on demand.
Training staff and delegating responsibility has benefitted him and his business.
Putting workflows in place to improve labour-intensive tasks has helped the business meet new demands. Source: Supplied
“You can have as many ideas as you want, but until you have the machine and muscle behind it to make it into reality, there’s no point,” he said.
He says there are plans to take the business offshore, but for now, he’s concentrating on building a strong local team.
“My idea of success is that I want a business I’m proud of and I want to give this joy of food I’ve got to as many people as I can,” Mr Thé said.
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