Imagine a place where every time you go there, you feel like somebody's going to give you a big grin and a warm hug and greet you like a friend.
Bec Bowie, with her sparkling blue eyes and magic grin, is that somebody. She's infused that spirit of genuine warmth in her staff and it just spills over to customers at Estabar, a ground floor cafe on Shortland Esplanade across from Newcastle Beach that has become a beacon for Newcastle hospitality at its best.
The menu stand-outs have been there nearly since it opened on November 19, 2004: salmon bruschetta with smoked king salmon, labna, red onion, and dill capers on sourdough; porridge with rolled oats, stewed rhubarb, crunchy granola and brown sugar; a trio of classic sourdough toasties, eggs with macadamia and miso pesto, or a brindal pickle, feta and fresh curry leaf dukkah.
The coffee is Single O, the milk from Little Big Dairy. They use 45 kilos of coffee a week, on a busy day they'll make 300 flat whites alone (the most popular order). After years of not offering almond coffees - because they could not find an environmentally-conscious supplier, they have just taken on almond milk from Mandole Orchards from western NSW, who meets Bowie's standards.
Seats on the stools at the open window on the inside offer a view across the road to the beach, where you will find passers-by, surfers and yes, occasionally whales, within sight. But the outside kerbside tables are just as popular on a sunny day.
While it's been successful since the start, it has taken much thought and many actions to carve its reputation for consistency not only in service but in being a good business to make the planet a better place.
"My vision was that we would play a role in the future of food and helping people connect with local and seasonal produce and producers," Bowie says. "That remains really important to me, the future of food and agriculture, and people's health.
"But also important to me was having a team that was really actively involved, so that I could come to work every day and be surrounded by people who were getting into it, having a really good time, but able to express themselves and engage and participate, but also just have fun...
"It's a fulfilling place to work because there's so much good energy coming from behind the counter, it's out here [on the floor] also."
In an interview with me in 2019, Bowie's quoted as saying about staff: "I guess I just look for those delicious, gorgeous people that love other people, that wanna serve, that wanna make other people feel great. But they can haul ass."
With an experienced staff of 20, Bowie is comfortable with her decision to sell the business as a going concern ready for its next chapter under a new owner.
Bowie, age 48, describes the moment she decide it was time for change this way: "I was driving around on my birthday last year and I just got the tap on the shoulder that said, 'you got about 12 months left in you'.
"I got a message from the universe. It was just time. That's all. It was just time."
Like any small business, the challenges came daily.
But she met them, and dedicated herself to reaching higher, using Australian and local suppliers whenever possible, reducing food waste to the bare minimum possible, not just pushing the message of sustainability but living it.
She salutes her suppliers right on the menu: eggs by Just Been Laid, sourdough by Baked Uprising, cheeses by Hunterbelle, jams by Mrs Ritter, nuts from Medowie Macadamias, and more.
Bowie took the business through the Supercars days.
"I was with one hand saying go away Supercars, the other hand saying that will be $600 a head [for a corporate box]," she says. "I was a huge part of the local pushback on Supercars. I thought it was wrong for us. It ruined people's businesses and really created a lot of stress here.
"But the shit hits the fan, you just figure out what to do."
IN-DEPTH: A day in the life of Bec Bowie
And the reconstruction of Bathers Way right in front of her business took a toll.
And then there was COVID, the ultimate small-business killer.
"I didn't have the energy I needed to keep going, and to give it what it really needed," she says of the decision to sell up.
"We needed somebody to come in who would have that energy that could keep responding to the challenges and opportunities."
During this interview, she's sitting with the new owner, 27-year-old Henry Hawcroft. She says, "I couldn't take another hit." And laughs as she turns to Hawcroft " I took all the hits, now you're going to be fine."
THE NEW OWNER
New owner Henry Hawcroft, 27, couldn't be happier with his new business.
"It makes pretty good sense," he says. "I'm a Newcastle boy through and through. I've always loved Estabar. I used to come here when I was young."
Hawcroft's family has owned Noah's on the Beach hotel less than 100 metres from Estabar for several years. Henry cut his teeth in hospitality there, and is a keen surfer.
He also has country roots, with his family having a long association with Byerley Stud thoroughbred and cattle farm near Sandy Hollow in the Upper Hunter.
Henry's father, Martin, died in a tragic accident on the property in 2012, and a visit to Estabar contributed to Henry's well-being afterwards.
"I lost my dad in an accident when I was 15," Henry says. "And your world gets flipped on its head pretty hard. I was so down in the dumps, I had a teacher who was really close to me in school, who knew I was an East End boy. He said 'how about we go to the beach and I'll take you out for breakfast'.
"He took me to Estabar of all places. I'll never forget, just the service. At the time, feeling so empty and gloomy, walking into here and that feeling of community and warmth - you just forget about everything, and how well everything clicked in here. It stuck with me forever, so when this came up, I thought, I'll throw my hand up. I love what it's about, that community feel. It's got such a positive vibe, everyone knows everyone. It was beautiful. And that really resonated with me and struck a note."
LESSONS
At one point, Bowie compares started and running the business to having parents - the lessons you learn along the way.
"I don't drink coffee much anymore," she admits. "I drink decaf mostly. Decaf long black, flat white. We have a beautiful decaf."
She was on the way to drinking herself to ill health through coffee earlier in the life of Estabar.
"I gave myself an autoimmune disease just from drinking coffee like it was tea," she says. "Because I making coffee, I would be tasting all of the shots until I was just ruined myself.
"I had to get off the machine, I just don't have the right temperament for it, because I just second-guessed it all the time. I was having seven a day, and having vegemite on toast in between.
"So then I went to New York and did the Natural Gourmet Institute... that informed a lot of decisions we made."
When it first opened, Estabar was a gelato and espresso bar, staying open until 10pm.
"We did it for a long time because were were fixated on the 'Barecelonian' model of gelato and espresso, but it didn't work," she says. "So eventually we pulled it back to 5 [pm], even 2 to 5 didn't work, so we now we just close at 2. We just do good business until 2, and that's it."
COVID made Bowie look at service in a new way.
"When COVID hit, we turned ourselves into a corner store and sold fruit and veggies, milk and eggs and other things. So we were able to keep streaming our suppliers through to the people," she says.
"But we created that little space [side door verandah], which we only had one table at, and turned it into a corner store. That is so incredibly useful because it means people who want takeaways don't have to come in and be awkward in the 50 square metres with everybody else."
Plus, the cafe evolved to offering table service, which was not only good business, but improved the experience.
"I felt like we had to move to table service more. - you can't sit there, you have to sit here. You really have to manage people," Bowie says. "And table service doubled our average sale. And improved the team experience as well. Of course, it improved the quality of the experience. People can come and relax. People will bring them all the things."
The tiny kitchen (the premises is only 52 square metres) also meant constantly striving for efficiency.
But not at all costs.
"We used to cook the porridge in a microwave when we first opened, which was so incongruent, and I couldn't wait to get rid of it. We used to scramble eggs in a microwave," Bowie says.
There is no microwave oven in Estabar these days.
"I felt like it wasn't adding quality to the food or the nutrient value," she says. "Thankfully, induction showed up."
The small kitchen has no room to waste, and thus the menu has no room for waste.
"We can't have an enormous menu because there is no place to store it or prep it," Bowie says. "You can only have three plates on the pass at a time, so the team has to be really quick to move the plates out so we can make more food.
"Even having that limitation is fantastic because you have to be so creative. You can't just go, 'everybody is doing this fancy thing' - this is our capacity, and what can we find that we can create that will work with what our potential is. And that's good, because it means that we are different. We always do something fresh."
THE ENVIRONMENT
Make no mistake, Bowie is a huge advocate of waste reduction.
"We got down to one bag of rubbish a day," she says "Sometimes that bin doesn't get emptied for two days. We minimise packaging, we use suppliers who we can send the stuff back to, or use suppliers who don't use heavy packaging, and we have solid recycling streams.
"We compost all of our food waste, which is pretty unusual.
"We went from two skip bin pick-ups a week to one a fortnight. And we don't even need to do one a fortnight.
"It's really important for the team, because the future is theirs. And so for them to come to work in a place that is delivering on sustainable objectives, actually just doing it, not talking about it, not just taking pretty pictures and throwng words around, but actually doing it, that's important to them. And that's probably one of the reasons we capture their hearts and they stay around and come back."
THE FUTURE
Bowie's boys Alby and Van were "absolutely devastated" when she told them she had sold the business.
"They keep asking me when I'm going to get a job," she says. "They're 10, and wondering when I'm going to get a job."
She's certain to take holiday - just not sure where. And will continue her dedication to good environmental habits.
"I also have 57 hectares out at Tea Gardens that I think about putting in a massive worm farm and doing some composting out there," she says. "But predominantly what I would love to do is teach people how to minimise their waste, and food waste is an easy way to make a massive mark, because 60 per cent of the hospitality garbage is food waste."
