Executive Chef Jake Furst with the Josper Grill
VENUE PROFILE
WHEN CRAIG Shearer and his team at Kickon Group bought The Terminus Hotel in late 2019, they were not expecting the stop-start nature of operations that would plague the industry in 2020. But the multiple lockdowns over the next 18 months would allow Shearer and his team to reassess the pub’s offer and action new ideas for the venue. One such idea was to change up the offer in The Terminus Dining Room – a separate dining offer and space to the pub bistro – and rebrand the restaurant as Cinder. Cinder is an elevated dining experience in a casual environment that celebrates high quality produce, cooked with fire. Shearer says the idea for the new concept was borne out of the experimentation afforded by lockdown, and at the behest of the pub’s executive chef. “During the first lockdown we renovated the space and reopened as the Terminus Dining Room. During the second lockdown our executive chef Jake Furst really got into his dryaging meat program, and we decided that meat
A flaming success
A rethink of the elevated dining concept at Terminus Hotel in Fitzroy North has been a huge boon for Kickon Group.
of that quality deserved to be cooked over real fire, so we installed the Josper grill, rebranded as Cinder, and tweaked our service styles to differentiate from the rest of the Terminus.” Cinder opened late last year “after lockdown number five or six, not sure as we sort of lost count”. In that short amount of time the restaurant has proven to be a huge success for The Terminus Hotel. “Cinder has wildly exceeded our expectations both financially and reputationally, culminating in us winning the AHA’s Best Pub Dining this year,” stated Shearer. “It offers another skillset to our staff, and another option to our loyal customers.”
20 | Australian Hotelier
