How An Inner-West Sydney Cafe Boomed During COVID-19 Lockdowns, And How Yours Could Too

Small Talk Success

COVID-19 hasn’t brought bad news to everyone. Strange, but for a lucky few, true. While the worldwide pandemic has brought the globe to a standstill, it’s also brought about a fresh outlook and offering for some Australian hospo venues. Small Talk Coffee & Snacks in Dulwich Hill, Sydney, was one of the lucky few, and as their dedicated hospitality bookkeeper and tax accountant we couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome for owner Sam Terrey’s small hospo business.

Set on a busy main road in Dulwich Hill, this nondescript cafe is off the radar for anyone whose radar it isn’t on – if you didn’t know it was there it’s unlikely you’d find it by accident. The offering is great: superb coffee, hand-rolled bagels, top-notch focaccia, morning buns and a few other bits and bobs, all baked in house. Before COVID-19 it was a dine-in cafe, ordering was done at the counter and lazing at the communal table was encouraged. 

COVID-19 changed things. With non-essential workers working from home, word quickly spread, excuse the timely pun. Instead of tapping mostly into the morning commute crowd, Small Talk was now getting multiple visits a day from the same customers and a whole heap of new ones. With social distancing measures in place, Sam moved the service counter to the front, just inside the door, meaning the order line spilled out the door. Cha-ching. Anyone driving or walking by was suddenly made aware of Small Talk because of the human flashing sign/line of people waiting for their takeaway.

“Going fully takeaway wasn’t something we would’ve done if not for COVID. [Takeaway has] made the business really easy to run, we’ve had a lot of cost savings. You don’t have staff washing dishes or running around on the floor and so forth. It doesn't necessarily relate to a cash saving but in terms of service we can do a lot more like bake more or serve more customers.”

Lucky for Sam his space and offering was simple enough to adapt, and adapt quickly it did. It’s important to take calculated risks and expand where needed when growth is inevitable and with an influx of new customers this was made possible. While a retail set-up mightn’t work for everyone, it was a great way to attract new customers while lots of people were buying locally and in a more bulk-like fashion. 

“I was able to take on staff instead of battening down the hatches and decided to go the opposite route and invest in human capital and also business capital. Talking to my Cafe Bookkeepers accountants helped me get my head around the implications of decisions like that,” Sam says.

While Small Talk has seen great success throughout the pandemic, our advice and strategy (pandemic or not) was always clear: know your numbers, know the Government updates and know how to navigate them. Advising Sam around each rebate available and how he could utilise these, if any, was our top priority. 

“The problem with the Government announcing so much at once and was it not explaining fully how the lock down would affect us. Having someone like Cafe Bookkeepers to help navigate and interpret it was invaluable,” Sam says. 

It’s this kind of tangible, clear success that puts smiles on faces in the CBK office. Being dedicated hospitality bookkeepers and accountants we’re often met with clients whose finances are in a bit of a mess before they come to us (totally fine by the way, we can fix it!) but it’s helping and guiding in the everyday that we love.

“I don’t think the size of your business should dictate where you get advice from. No matter what you should try to think and act like a large business. Sure, you can do it yourself of course but at the end of the day bookkeeping and accounting is what Cafe Bookkeepers do every day and it’s their expertise. I’m capable of figuring it out and I can spend the time and energy trying to but the value of using Cafe Bookkeepers is I’m able to spend my energy focusing on the business. 

“It may seem like a big cost on paper but the amount saved in the long run by reducing tax liability for example or just by not making mistakes so you don't get penalised later, that’s going to cost much more in the long run than paying someone this amount in the short term.”

For more information on our hospitality bookkeeping, accounting, managed payroll or new-business services please get in touch. Until next time.

Oh, and if you haven’t visited Small Talk for a chocolate and almond morning bun yet, you’ve done your iso wrong. Once you try, you can’t stop.