Elwood Beach
House's celebrity owners have turned the Melbourne venue into
a food concept popular with young families by day and a more grown-up
audience at night.
Crowded House
drummer Paul Hester and Black Sorrows singer Joe Camilleri have
a new outlet for their creative energy - Elwood Beach House.
It's a venue of a different kind for the two musicians. Not the
usual late-night seedy band venue, this time around its a bright
bayside venue with a children's playground. Come again. Musicians?
Playground?
Elwood Beach House manager, Jason Rowbottom, says the playground
has successfully delivered a daytime family audience to the venue.
But anyone who knows anything of the history of this site wouldn't
be surprised what direction it took - only three years ago it
was a bowling club with a small tea house attached.
Rowbottom says the transformation of the venue is still a work
in progress. Although the
110-seat venue has already hosted some weddings and BBQs, it hasn't
been aggressively marketed, something Rowbottom intends to change
along with the evening meals - extending night-time trade from
summer only to year-round.
Rowbottom,
who has a background in nightclub management, is conscious of
keeping in touch with the operation from a central command point.
"There was a duplicate document system which was the worst thing
I've ever seen... orders would get lost, especially on weekends
when we are busiest. So we installed a Casio QT-2000 Hospitality
System."
Rowbottom says the Casio system is excellent, especially for businesses
with a high volumes, a point-of-sale system where floor staff
punch in from one of four terminals scattered around the dining
area. Rowbottom argues it improves the service and, because staff
aren't running from the kitchen to tables, saves wages on runners.
The system also enables him to oversee individual staff sales
performance and keep in touch with stock levels. It seems the
relaxed Aussie beach hut has gone high-tech.
