Dealerships, Free Access Articles , , ,

LSH Group’s landmark lifestyle dealership at Breakfast Creek in Brisbane has attracted celebrated chef Shannon Kellam who, together with LSH, is investing millions of dollars in possibly the most ambitious marriage ever of culinary excellence with a prestige automotive brand.

Dining and car dealerships have been seen before but nothing can compare with the scale of imagination and business creativity that is being employed by Mr Kellam at Breakfast Creek.

The initial plan of the LSH property developers was to build a lifestyle precinct around their more than $100 million investment in the display and servicing of Mercedes-Benz cars to maintain a flow of potential customers to be exposed to the Mercedes-Benz model range and to encourage owners to keep coming back between purchases of cars.

But the Kellam family’s decision to integrate its expansion plans in the Brisbane market into the Breakfast Creek dealership goes far beyond anything LSH’s planners ever envisaged.

Far from simply taking out a lease for the rooftop restaurant and the Breakfast Creek boardwalk area, Mr Kellam has put in place a master plan where the multiple aspects of the family’s culinary business each become a source of attraction to the Breakfast Creek building in their own right.

Ground floor waterside cafe beside the Breakfast Creek Wharf

The plan is designed to attract many hundreds of people, potentially thousands, to the building each month because he is developing as we speak a vertically integrated catering and dining business that centres its food production operations for his various Brisbane menus at the Breakfast Creek dealership.

This operation will support culinary activities that will generate floor traffic for Mercedes-Benz Brisbane far beyond what any dealership would normally bring in.

The plans fit in with LSH’s intention to create a competitive edge for Mercedes-Benz Brisbane by creating a destination that is visited by its customers far more frequently than the normal car purchase and vehicle service cycle. The plan is to build sales from the extra traffic generated by the lifestyle activities within the building.

With construction of his kitchens already underway, the Shannon Kellam operations will encompass:

  • Rooftop fine dining for up to 200 people and additional rooftop bar lounge and events terrace for another 150-200 people.
  • Boardwalk boulangerie and patisserie and more casual dining with coffee and sandwiches and hot savoury food along Breakfast Creek for about 400 people.
  • A food preparation kitchen and bakery on the third-level lifestyle floor occupying 5500 square metres with viewing windows for the public to watch the chefs, pastry cooks and bakers at work. This operation will supply prepared food to events spaces within the dealership showrooms and to the Kellam family’s dining areas throughout the building.
  • A cooking school for 20 people for savoury dishes (meat, vegetables etc) and another school for 20 people for baking, desserts and pastries on level three.
  • Private dining room attached to the cooking school.
  • Delivery vans have access to level-three kitchens via the two car lifts used by the Mercedes-Benz Brisbane dealership. These are used to deliver produce into the kitchens as well as deliver prepared food to his restaurant and a separate boulangerie in Bowen Hills and deliveries to outside catered events.

To understand the importance of the initiative and how all the bits fit together, a bit of history is necessary.

Shannon Kellam has been a chef for 27 years, has spent the better part of his career in Europe and was a serial competitor of culinary competitions.


Click for gallery


He has represented Australia at many international culinary events, some of which require training for a year to ultimately qualify for one day of competition at the world level.

He was in the Australian team that won two gold medals at the 2008 Culinary Olympics which were founded in 1892, won two silver medals at the 2012 Olympics and has amassed 80 medals in various other culinary events.

His wife and business partner, Clare, once worked in London at the Savoy Hotel, the Oriental Mandarin and the Chelsea Harbour Hotel.

Five years ago they purchased Montrachet – named after the most exclusive chardonnay in the world – in Brisbane’s Paddington where it had been operating for 10 years with a business client base.

It is now located in Bowen Hills and was recently named the best French restaurant in Australia in national restaurant awards. About a third of its patrons are from interstate.

Montrachet had a retail outlet selling direct to the public with coffee and sandwiches and hot savoury food. It had a savoury kitchen and a pastry kitchen which worked through the night, with the chefs taking over in the morning.

The business outgrew that space within six months so they took over a shop in nearby King Street, built the pastry shop bigger and better with a small a la carte kitchen to create a pleasant place for breakfast which revolves around the pastries and breads. They grew the pastry team including specialists from France. Called King Street Bakery, it has been operating for 12 months.

Casual dining on the rooftop terrace

All that team, five pastry chefs and two bakers, in a little 160-square-metre shop servicing 450 people a day, required yet more expansion along with growing demand for preparation areas for business client events and private catered events.

When LSH approached the Kellams about opening a restaurant at Breakfast Creek, the opportunity to service the existing growing businesses in Bowen Hills along with building the scale of operations needed to service the Breakfast Creek building as well as growing outside events was a perfect fit.

The economics of the operation is the central engine room, preparing the food with all the various culinary, banqueting and catering activities branching off from the core activity on the third floor which is also a means of entertainment in its own right.

By centralising at Breakfast Creek they eliminate significant duplication across multiple kitchens containing capital-intensive complex ovens, chillers and the various preparation rooms needed to be run at different temperatures depending on the ingredients.

Shannon Kellam

“We have an advantage because so much of what we serve is done in the production kitchen so we don’t need so many people in each of the restaurants. They are the service team and we don’t need the prep team in each location,” Mr Kellam said.

Mr Kellam told GoAutoNews Premium: “This is a big investment and we are here for a long time. When we understood what LSH wanted to achieve for Brisbane with this development, that is when my wife and I decided to give all our experience and give everything we have because this concept is definitely deserving of that.”

The managing director of LSH Auto Australia, John Good, told GoAutoNews Premium: “When this is opened it will have as big a wow factor as when Mercedes-Benz Brisbane opened the car side. There will be nothing like this anywhere else in the world.


Click for gallery


“That brings us back to differentiation. We can do something very different that no-one else in the automotive industry can do. So we can set a very clear trajectory that is very different to how the car business is traditionally run.

“And as we move into multiple dealership models, as long as we have a clear differentiation, we will have a stronger advantage,” Mr Good said.

“There are many events for our customers as well, so there really is a synergy that will not only bring in a lot of people from the outside but also do a lot for our own customers.”

A key point is the sheer scale of the operation and its ability to attract people into the dealership on a frequent basis, from board meetings to weddings.

“We expect that in-house and outside events catering, this kitchen will be able to manage 50 banquets a week for a couple of thousand people,” Mr Kellam said.

Mr Kellam plans to introduce a guest chefs program which every three months will bring top chefs as guests from Europe, Asia and the United States with a two- or three-star Michelin background. They will conduct events in the premium events space of the dealership for 200 people with a seven-course menu built around their philosophy on food, their style, their restaurant.

“We will bring that through Breakfast Creek,” he said.

“While they are here they will do cooking classes in the cooking school and they will spend time in the production kitchen with all my staff.

“We will also have wine-makers come in for special events which is something we do at Montrachet now.”

There have already been a number of corporate events in the Mercedes-Benz Brisbane showroom including a sit-down dinner amongst the showroom cars.

Rooftop wine bar

One feature of the showrooms is that the huge wall screens can be plugged in for presentation material and corporate branding of the event host.

One recent showroom catered event generated a further six bookings (and sold one car).

“We can have boardroom events going on every day, stand-up events and sit-down in the fine dining area,” Mr Kellam said.

“The cooking school will be used as part of the events space. There will be private parties where people come to learn to cook.

“The plan is to have corporate team-building events in the cooking school, with the group finishing in the private dining room. We can have two classes going at once. Corporate team-building events are amongst the most common events we do already,” he said.

“The cooking schools will be hands-on. Many cooking classes are demonstrations but with us everyone must complete every single task at their own individual stations.”

The adjacent private dining room will also be used for special events and set menu dining.

Asked about his commitment to the Breakfast Creek property, Mr Kellam said: “If you were just to put an operator downstairs and another upstairs anyone could have done that and it would not have done justice to the building.

“All events can be of the highest international standard because that is what the production area is doing day in and day out.

“We are looking at doing events like night markets on the boardwalk and night cinema and that will attract hundreds of people standing up with a simple food offering and enjoying the space.

“So anyone who comes into the creek side, no matter whether they drive a Holden Commodore, will feel comfortable sitting back having a beer with the wife and the kids having something to eat and telling their friends: ‘How good is this?’”

As Mr Kellam proceeds with his plans, LSH management is working on opportunities to introduce lifestyle tenants into the remaining third-floor space. They are discussing the potential for tenants in health and wellbeing and beauty and hair care.

A business centre with meeting rooms for local businesses and customers is also being considered.


Breakfast Creek: A smooth transition

Five months into move and the LSH crew remains surprised at how smoothly everything went

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE


Take a tour of the production kitchen

By John Mellor

Manheim
Gumtree
Manheim
Manheim
MotorOne
PitcherPartners
Gumtree
DealerCell
AdTorque Edge
Schmick