march: wild basket
Wild Basket? How did you come up with the idea?
Wild Basket is an amalgamation of passion for native Australian ingredients, travel and sampling so many beautiful foods across regional Australia. We found ourselves travelling to many great wine regions across the country and this is where gourmet food is at it's finest. We found that we would purchase so many beautiful foods only to find that when we got back to Sydney there was nowhere to buy it!! So, we decided it was about time that Sydney featured a gourmet food store with a sole focus on artisan Australian products.
Apart from Bills Beans what’s the top five best things you sell?
Hmm, tough question – Bills is definitely No. 1 (beans as well as espressos prepared by our professionally trained baristas) other than that, I would say: Kakawa Rocky Road, Woodside Cheese Writes Monet cheese, Ginger & Granny Smith Frou Frou Cordial, Curious Chocolatier chocolates, Cradle Coast Olive Oils & Longtrack relishes – yum yum yum!!
Wild Basket seems to be such a friendly place; you must all enjoy your work?
You know what, this is the best job I have ever had! I love our shop and I love our customers. Creating a sense of community was very important to us. We wanted our customers to feel a part of the wild basket journey. We make a huge effort to get to know our customers by name and who they are as a person. This is a rare thing in Sydney and I think it's extremely important. We took our time to employ the right staff that also adopts this mantra! It's a great place to work and visit!
How did you see Bills Beans being a part of what you do?
Bills Beans is exactly the type of brand we promote. Small producer who is top of their game… We took our time to find the perfect roaster to put in our café/shop – this was one of the most crucial decisions for us and I am so glad that we have Bills on board.
It is small enough brand to be unique but big enough to be a consistent and superior product – not to mention the unwavering passion from Bill and Lisa to deliver brilliant coffee! I am so proud to be a part of bringing this brand to North Shore coffee drinkers!! My customers love the beans and we have been ‘dubbed’ by many as having the best coffee on the Lower North Shore!
Okay let us get this right.... You left the corporate world to follow your dream and start a new business and are about to have a baby… Any advice to people contemplating the same thing?
Firstly, I wouldn't have it any other way! However, in saying that it certainly isn't for the faint hearted. Starting your own business, especially when you are trying to carve out a niche in the market is hard work; add on top of that opening a new shop in my third trimester of pregnancy. I am due in 2 weeks and still working in shop (on my feet). It's times like this that you need to remind yourself of the bigger picture, this business was set up with our families future in mind and to me, in the long run we will have more flexibility than when I was working in the corporate world… Not to mention doing what we love! This little bub will be a born ‘foodie’, now just need him/her to get tall enough to work the coffee machine so they can start pumping out some good Bills Beans espressos :)
Are you calling your first-born Bills Beans?
Hahahaha! Watch this space…
