About
Introduction / Setting the scene
Jus Burgers came to life when Justin Bell and a chef friend whom he worked with in Hong Kong caught up in London almost two years ago. Whilst Justin left Asia for Oz, Dan decided to return to the U.K. and amongst his achievements was the inception of a new gourmet burger bar, which subsequently has grown to 8 or 9 in England and Ireland. After visiting the U.K twice last year for research (as well as Melbourne, Sydney, Dubai and Singapore) Justin returned with a first draft business plan that he wanted to give the people of Perth, his adopted home-town. I hope that you enjoy what has been a long and determined process to achieve this goal.
Mission statement / key driver
To try to deliver with integrity and honesty the best burger bar in Western Australia and, take on those buggers over East and have Perth recognised as having the best burger bar in the country.
The Real Heroes: The suppliers / producers
All our food is sourced locally, using suppliers that we have formed a mutually rewarding working relationship. Having lived and worked in Perth for almost 10 years now, I feel I have sufficient local knowledge and judgment as to where and who my suppliers should be.
Below is a list of suppliers and companies that are likely to be used at the time of writing:
Meat/small goods Mondos, Ryan’s meats, Mt.Barker chicken, Princi, Mahogany Creek Bread Turkish bakery Fruit & Veg Morley Growers, Supa Spud Fish Festival fish Dry Goods Angry Almond, European foods, Eustralis, Ladle and Table, The Grocer, Pisconeri, Sealanes, Centra
THE CORE LINES
Meat
All our meat, game and poultry is from WA, period. Our meat is sourced and butchered by our suppliers with nothing added but salt and pepper when on the charry. Using fully HACCP accredited suppliers coupled with an MSA quality assurance program, we feel confident in the lines we have on offer at Jus Burgers
Chips
Royal blue potatoes will be our choice of chip (season dependent) They go through a ‘par-cooking process’ on site at Bibra Lake and are finished in a coating of canola oil, therefore little oxidisation occurs. There is a ‘QA’ programme in place their, however, from time to time the odd one slips through the net, which proves their real, not frozen! We will have two double bin fryers at Jus Burgers. One will simply cook the chips,(and fish when ordered, good oils used, no tallow) whilst the other will be used for the pumpkin, falafel burgers and onion rings, therefore, both our product and oil that is cooked in is 100% vegetarian
Bread
Freshly baked daily from the team at the Turkish bakery in Vic Park. The girls have just completed their new whole meal Turkish roll which we will have to offer to our guests, embracing their new packaging, ‘buy west eat best’ logo. A gluten free bun will also be sourced from a reputable supplier and be ‘on- hand’ should such a product be requested.
Fish
Filleted and portion controlled West Australian saddle tail snapper will be used in our fish burger. Adrian at Festival supplies the same product to the major airlines for their in-flight catering.
Core Equipment
A 1200mm chargrill from the U.S. that has plenty of grunt will be used in our open kitchen at Jus Burgers, thus enabling the customers to see exactly what they’re eating. We feel that the taste and smells associated with this model will give the public as close as possible to that great Aussie barbie we all love. We have also procured a U.S Pitco double bin fryer with a built in filtration system, cleaner and longer lasting oil = a better product.
The People
Basically, from inception to completion I have been driving this idea, 18 months now, yet to earn a dollar, but you get ‘ought for nought’ as my grandmother used to say. In the early days, a few good friends were my ‘go to people’, and since then I have sourced a group of investors who are all local and successful (privacy requested).
Architect / Designer - Scott Wilson Design.
Our opening brief to one another was to achieve a fun, functional & quirky space. A burger bar that doesn’t look like a burger bar, with a strong focus on fully recyclable products to be used (Contact Scott Wilson to elaborate more pls). Whilst seating constraints were annoying, we have designed a product that is still very conducive to dining solo, with a partner or group & with the kids.
David Garland from Abnormal Design
Dave and his team were responsible for the graphic design work and applications for Jus Burgers, as well as the graffiti art that is featured in the Leederville store. Thanks Dave. Visit Abnormal Design for more information.
Special Thanks
Thanks goes to Michael Chestnutt for the photography, Kurt and his team at ICS Australia for the fit- out, as well as Des Gibson at Caterlink for ‘making it happen’ Cheers Guys!
Justin Bell
Brief overview – After training in the U.K for a City and Guilds and the more recent NVQ, I worked in restaurants (French, Swiss, Italian), hotel, events/catering, corporate managed properties, before heading oversees. After extensive travels, and meeting my wife Donna, I worked in Sydney at a Tapas bar and then spent the next four years living and working in Hong Kong, all restaurant based, with some smart operators. I have also had a good grounding in Thai cuisine after spending much time in that country, culminating with a solid education at a well known cooking school in Bangkok.
Australia was calling and, having travelled everywhere in Oz apart from Perth, we decided to head straight there. Back in 99’ I worked at 44 Kings St as 2ic then head chef, 2.5 yrs, then Monza in Leed as head chef/part-owner,1.5yrs, then onto the Subi as 2ic for just under a year, before heading down south to Bunker Bay, exec chef, 2.5yrs. On returning to Perth, I went to the Crowne Plaza hotel, IHG, exec chef, 2 years ……. now on to my 5th opening, ‘Q’ restaurant and El Pomposo in Hong Kong, Monza in Perth, Bunker Bay in Dunsborough and now Jus Burgers in Leederville.
Promoting ‘Health’
Claiming to be ‘healthy’ has to be really justified in my opinion and I believe that operators should be careful when promoting this in the market-place. At The Crowne plaza hotel for example, we used ‘Food Groups Australia’ when designing our room service menus, a long and very detailed exercise, whereby the food was broken-down by experts, then passed-on to our guests in confidence. Trying to ‘do the right thing’ sits better with me personally, buying quality local produce, keeping it simple and passing this on to the consumer.
Copy Cats
I would be very surprised if there is another Jus Burgers out there. This model was derived with point of difference as a key driver. Location was important in determining the correct vibe. The ‘look’ was something that Scott and I felt passionately about and, I would like to think that our product is driven with integrity, lots of research and many ‘cook-offs’ to get to where we are now. Having locally witnessed some competitors use models both in Melbourne and the U.K as their benchmark, we hope that our product remains honest.
Beverage
Commencing with no liquor license, an emphasis is being placed on fresh shakes and juices made in-house, as well as a great range of ‘off the shelf’ drinks. Our strategy will be to buy seasonally, letting the markets dictate what I should be buying not what I want to buy. A current example would be our fresh mango, ginger and local goat’s milk (we used un-pasteurised Giddegannup goats milk for the photo shoot) shake. Lovely. Even better as there were no dodgy topping sauces, additives, colourings, preservatives blah blah added... The same applies to our juices, Nick from Morley Growers will be briefed to provide me with what are the three smartest fruits to buy on any given day, and we’ll create a fresh juice around that. After long discussions, and with the size of our shop in mind, we have decided not to offer coffee. One more coffee place in Leedy already adding to a very competitive market didn’t make sense.