2022 - JACK N SUE

Sue and Jack are a mother–son duo who are following a family dream to bring artisanal food products to Broome. They saw a gap in the market and have ventured from their previous occupations to follow this dream. They are excited by the response they’ve received from running their pop-up operation two-days-a-week during 2021. In 2022, they look forward to providing cosmopolitan foodie delight on a bigger scale alongside the great team at Little Local.

Jack is an electrician and has his own business — Gurnga Energy (Off Grid Living). A while ago, Jack was asked to do some electrical work at a place that is now known as ‘Little Local’. This is where he first noticed the wood-fired oven. Jack was interested in baking his own bread and had already attended a weekend workshop on sourdough. This electrical encounter got him thinking.

Sue was busy working as a nurse in many different capacities — a job she loved. Family life was busy with three grown-up children and a group of friends who were making gin, but there was something missing. Then the dream started to emerge — Artigiana was born.

Sue

In 1995, Nunze and I were doing a trip around Australia. Jack and Lauren were four and Mitchell was one. We were travelling in a convoy with four other families, and we all ended up in Broome for a while. We went to Perth for the wet season, but the next year we returned to Broome. I got a job at Charlie Carters and Nunze looked after the kids in the caravan. It was great. I met a lot of the meatworkers which gave us a social life out of the caravan park. At the end of the year, we went up to Darwin and then returned to Melbourne. We only lasted till April before we packed up and headed back to Broome. Nunzio already had the printing business in Melbourne so when we decided to stay in Broome, he set up Pindan Printing. It was 1998.

In the early days, we never travelled back to Melbourne as a family because it was too expensive. One time, at Nunzio’s brother’s place in Melbourne, Jack said, ‘Thank you for getting us out of here’. It was a typical Melbourne day — the sky was dark and the skyline looked bleak.

Jack

I did my early schooling in Broome and was then lucky enough to go to Perth for boarding school. It opened the wider world to me and the other kids boarding from Broome. Funnily enough, all those kids returned to Broome to work and it’s where I did my electrical apprenticeship.

Living away, I got an appreciation of good food and bread. Coming back, and not being able to get all those delicious foods and breads, must have planted a seed. We would go down south in summer and visit Perth, or go to Melbourne, and would eat all these different delicacies. We’d go into the ReStore and bring back a load of meats and cheeses. The idea of having a deli was floating around the family since we were teenagers.

Sue

Nunzio used to say, ‘If Broome needs anything, it needs a deli. If my mum was younger, I would bring her up here. She could cook and sell her pasta’. Nunzio had his business, and I was nursing and loved it — the dream was just wafting in the background. Life got busy with work, business and kids. After Nunze died, we all started thinking that there was more to our lives.

Jack

Taya was thinking of doing something at Little Local in Jones Place and she needed electrical work done. We did a bit of bartering on the electrical job so I could learn how to use the pizza oven. That was when I thought I could bake bread a couple of days a week, and I mentioned my idea to Mum.

Sue

At the time Jack was thinking about baking bread, I had no idea that we would be doing anything together. Jack was experimenting with baking, and he baked a lot of bricks. Then he said, ‘I think I can bake ten loaves.’ The dream started to slowly emerge. We decided we would start with twelve products as we only had Taya’s fridge. Jack went down to Perth to get some shelving.

In the beginning, we opened two days a week. People would queue up for the bread and we sold out early. It was crazy. We hope to grow slowly and open five-days-a week in the dry season. We have lots to plan and are trying to grow organically. We just need to get more fridges and possibly rent more space.

We were lucky enough to have a friend who had left Broome and started a wholesale business. That was really helpful in the beginning. I have had to learn how to use Facebook and Instagram and, being remote, I do a lot of searching. We might order a small quantity of something just to try it. Our Sicilian jam was the first product we sourced as I had been buying tons of it from a Perth deli for years. When we thought of opening up Artigiana, it was the first item I knew I needed to have on the shelves. For the first six months, we ordered bits and pieces. We prepared and cooked the products to know how to use them. Lots of research behind the scenes.

Ordering stock is something we do together. It’s a juggle to know what to order and to see what sells. A lot of our products have a use-by date so we need to know we can move them. Something might look a good price, but we check the use-by date to know whether to get it. Freight of course is a big cost. We want to offer great products, but the prices are going to be different from Coles and Woolworths. You cannot compare as our stock is sourced from many places, whereas they have generic goods. Our prices dictate who will buy as our customer demographic is people who love quality, tasty and different delicatessen items. We are a Providore!

Every day is about learning something new. We are pushing all our money back into the business, so I still do a nursing job one-day-a-week, and Jack is doing his electrical work. We’re not getting a wage yet. You have to do that when starting from scratch.

We are now putting in a commercial kitchen at the Pindan Printing building. So lucky we did not sell it after Nunze passed, as at the time we really needed the money. It was meant to be.

I will pull away from Jack’s side of the business and he will do his thing. My passion is creating the hampers which have become very popular as presents. I’ll concentrate on them as well as grazing boxes, prepared meals and utilizing our products more. I love doing the hampers — our Truffle Hamper is special and then we have the Cheeseboard in a Box. I am endlessly thinking of new ideas. At the moment, we have six hampers and four grazing boxes. I can really see this part of the business expanding.

When we are really busy at Artigiana, we sometimes think of Nunzio walking through the gate and sitting at a table. He never drunk coffee and he would have been in the way — probably eating all the food and directing us what to do.

It is a busy environment to work in. Taya’s crew are young and vibrant, and nice to hang out with. I am the old woman at the Little Local. It has a beautiful energy about it. We support each other — they provide the coffee, and we do the rest. It’s a great combination.

We just want people to come here for their bread, get something special for dinner, or deli items for later on. We want to keep it simple. We don’t have a menu —we might just have jam of the day to go with your croissant.

NOTE:

Artigiana opened in March 2021 and has become the ‘locals’ place to go. I cannot wait to see how this business grows over the next year or so. Good luck Jack and Sue, you are onto something special. Check out their socials and website for more info.