FEATURE: SOCIAL ENTERPRISE VENUES

A seat at the table

Two social enterprise venues are the embodiment of community enrichment.

-WORDS Aristine Dobson

-PHOTOGRAPHY Kitti Gould for PlateitForward; Everyday Nicholson

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE VENUES are a powerful force within Australia’s dining scene. The establishments are built on the notion that food brings people together and utilise commercial strategies to make a significant social impact.

Whether it is providing support, training and employment to workers or donating meals, social enterprise businesses are designed to assist vulnerable members of the community. For diners, the experience can foster positive interactions and provide an opportunity to learn about food from other cultures.

Hospitality speaks to John Buckney and Roya Rasuly from Kabul Social and Jesi Beaton from Sibling about the importance of collaboration in social enterprise models and making a difference in the kitchen and among the community.

PlateitForward was founded by Shaun Christie- David in 2020, with the initiative providing meals to people who were severely affected by the pandemic. Since then, PlateitForward has become a part of Sydney’s hospitality landscape through Sri Lankan restaurant Colombo Social, and most recently, Kabul Social.

“We are a group of women, and when women support women, incredible things happen.”

– Roya Rasuly

The eatery opened its doors in August in Sydney’s MetCentre in the CBD. In addition to creating authentic Afghan cuisine, Kabul Social provides training and employment opportunities to Afghan refugees settling in Australia.

A group of women from Afghanistan lead the kitchen and run the day-to-day operations, with Roya Rasuly part of the team. “The platform motivates us and is a way to promote ourselves,” she says. “We are a group of women, and when women support women, incredible things happen.”

PlateitForward’s Head Chef John Buckney has worked with the group for a year and says it was a natural fit. “I was really interested in what they were doing and believed in their core values,” he says. “Understanding how a business model like this works is very different. You leave time to make sure you’re compassionate, understanding and adjusted to different cultures.”

Sibling café in Melbourne’s Carlton North opened in 2018 as an extension of the now-closed Kinfolk. “We were effectively their ‘sibling’,” says General Manager Jesi Beaton. “But the demand for volunteer spots was so high that they weren’t able to facilitate it due to space.”

The café is run by a diverse workforce of volunteers who were hired via social media, online advertisements, word of mouth and partner organisations. “At the moment, our volunteer cohort is around 32 people,” says Beaton. “They are socially marginalised youth, people who have a disability, have been experiencing long-term unemployment or are just looking for some social inclusion. We provide a space for them to get on-site training and build their skills.”

Community enrichment is an important aspect of most social enterprise models in hospitality and is usually demonstrated through providing support and employment in the sector. The women at Kabul Social participated in a monthlong training program with PlateitForward and are now gaining valuable experience in a commercial kitchen environment. “We are still learning, but we’ve learned a lot,” says Rasuly. “We work from 11am until 3pm and afterwards we get advice, suggestions and training.”

The team are instrumental in the creation of the menu which features Afghan recipes that have been passed down over generations. “We have lots of experience in Afghanistan with making Afghan food and bread,” says Rasuly. “It [creates] conversations that are related to our culture and to Afghanistan’s traditions.”

Buckney worked with the women to adapt their home-style cooking to a restaurant setting. “I went ahead and gained as much information as I could about Afghan food and I looked at different recipes and asked them if they knew about the dishes,” says the chef. “Sometimes I’d be totally off the mark, and they’d be like, ‘No that’s Iranian’. We basically found the dishes we were after and then they cooked their versions of them.”

Sibling’s staff can work at the café for as long as they need to, depending on their own personal goals. “We don’t have a specific timeframe; some volunteered at Kinfolk before Sibling even opened,” says Beaton.

While long-term employment is not the objective for everyone, Sibling helps some of its volunteers pursue careers in the industry. “We’re partnering with Fitzroy Learning Network which is our registered training organisation to do a few units for certificates in hospitality,” says Beaton. “We’re starting with an espresso and a hygiene unit and building up as we go along.”

The café has in turn provided some staff with permanent positions in-house. “We have two staff members who used to be volunteers,” says Beaton. “One is the kitchenhand and the other is a front-of-house staff member who’s gone back to volunteering one day a week on top of her shifts because she wants to learn how to bake.”

Both enterprises use food to appeal to the local market while achieving social goals. Kabul Social’s menu encompasses traditional staples such as mantu dumplings, made-to-order flatbread, maash palaw (mung bean rice), Kabuli burgers (wraps) as well as build-your-own Kabuli boxes. “It’s high-quality casual dining with a modern-day health focus,” says Buckney. “We offer light lunches and Afghan home-cooked meals at the same time.”

Brainstorming and testing dishes has been an exercise in education, bringing the team closer together. “Sometimes we would go through a dish and it just wouldn’t work,” says Buckney. “We’d go back to the drawing board and make sure we could find something we knew would sell to the Australian market while maintaining the core of Afghan cookery.”

Every purchase made at the restaurant results in a meal being donated to a family in Australia and another in Afghanistan through Australian aid organisation Mahboba’s Promise. As the restaurant gets busier, more food relief is provided to people in both communities. “Our team is very happy and we are working hard,” says Rasuly. “Day by day, I see improvement. On the first day, there were around 50 people, the second 60 and today 200.”

The team at Sibling also collaborate to workshop dishes for its seasonal menu. “The chefs have control over menu development,” says Beaton. “We have weekly meetings and go through what’s been selling or what’s in season and things we might have seen or tried. The chefs will make the dishes and bring them out for us and everyone in the team gives feedback.”

An example is a vegan mushroom toastie that was originally a weekly special but fast became a staple. “We work with Sporadical City Mushrooms which started years ago [with the owner] growing mushrooms in her garage in Carlton,” says Beaton. “We do weekend specials every Saturday and a lot of regulars will come in and say, ‘This has to go on’.”

Sibling’s dishes also champion produce that is sourced in an environmentally friendly way. “We try our best to find everything as locally as we can,” says Beaton. “All our packaging is compostable even though it is more expensive.”

The goal of a social enterprise is to make a significant social or environmental change, and Kabul Social and Sibling are doing just that. Rasuly previously worked as a gender specialist in Afghanistan and has always been an advocate for women’s rights. The HR manager is currently utilising her skills to get the word out about Kabul Social and believes the restaurant is empowering others. “When I talk to groups of Afghan refugees or people from Afghanistan, I talk about Kabul Social,” she says. “Every woman wants to come here because they’re motivated and have lots of positive opinions.”

Beaton has witnessed first-hand the positive outcomes of Sibling’s training program. “We can’t employ everybody, but we get them employment ready,” she says. “The confidence and ownership they have of their day is quite wonderful to watch.” Sibling has firmly established itself within Carlton North’s dining scene and has been highly beneficial for everyone involved. “The community gets really into it,” says Beaton. “Everyone seems to gain a sense of achievement through what they’re doing here.”

Kabul Social and Sibling Café are both thriving in a commercial setting with purpose. The venues share a common mission: allowing everyone to have a fair go in the kitchen while striving for change one dish at a time.

- The number of donated meals is electronically displayed at Kabul Social

- Sibling works with Lancaster Consulting to support volunteers with a disability

- The flatbread at Kabul Social is made to order

- Sibling has a small retail space that sells locally made products