11/06/2024
When Kath Nugent moved Rustic Gourmet’s second store from Kent Town to Norwood Green earlier this year, there was one thing she had to bring with her to ensure the cafe’s continuing success. But she wasn’t concerned about fancy ingredients or expensive kitchen equipment: she knows the most valuable asset of any business is its employees.
“Hospitality is traditionally a transient industry, and I've been particularly fortunate to have such good-natured and loyal staff,” says the Rustic Gourmet owner. Bringing all her employees over in the relocation is in keeping with the ethos of this thriving operation, which started as a wholesale cake and catering business in 2009.
After spending a decade in marketing, Nugent found herself looking after three young children and began searching for ways she could work from home. “Rustic Gourmet started as cooks making food, not chefs,” she says. “And we were always pretty honest about that. So nothing was terribly tricky or fancy, it was just based on producing food that was fresh and flavourful.”
A philosophy of “real food made from scratch” was more important than any specific cuisine, and remains so today. And even as the business has evolved to include a team of chefs, the food has retained the wholesome, homemade feel. “Our customers appreciate that everything is made onsite and made from the ground up,” says Nugent, who notes that the team does everything in-house except for the bread and croissants. “And even then, we make our own filling for the almond croissants.”
That means she can keep food miles low by using local ingredients wherever possible, including Rohde’s Free Range eggs, leg ham sourced from a butcher in Marryatville and exclusively South Australian wine and beer. Not waiting on deliveries also means that everything you see in the store is being served when it is at its best. “In some cafes the cakes might sit there for a long time before they are turned over,” Nugent explains. “But if you're making stuff onsite, you can make fewer things and make them fresher. That allows us to have a menu that changes daily so the cakes, salads and take-home meals are always fresh.”
Five years after launching the business, Nugent expanded into retail with a space in Tusmore. The Kent Town location followed in 2018, but she had to move out when her landlord bought the building and in February started trading from Norwood Green. And while the former site was 140 square metres, Nugent notes that “I didn't have the luxury of that sort of space here.” It’s why she has created a more intimate environment with warm tones, rustic textures including Venetian plaster on the walls and plenty of natural light.
The other big change was a move to table service and a greater emphasis on sit-down meals, which in turn led to a wider range of specials available alongside the longstanding menu favourites. A selection of take-home meals also caters to those customers who are short on time.
“We've been doing them for a long time,” notes Nugent, “but Covid really bedded that in. Every day we do a different take-home option for residents or people who don’t feel like cooking that night.” Those meals range from lasagne and meatballs to pies, frittatas and slow-cooked curries like rogan josh, rendang and massaman. “And they’re very popular so they always sell out in a couple of days, which means everything stays fresh.”
