Meet the young leaders heating up Queensland’s hospitality scene
These 40 Under 40 finalists are hard at work in the kitchen, cooking up new possibilities for the future of food.
Angus McLachlan
Bopple: CEO and Co-Founder
With a background in design, Angus McLachlan spent several years in London consulting for global brands including W Hotels and McLaren, before returning to Brisbane to found Bopple – an online ordering and customer-growth platform for hospitality in Australia and New Zealand. Since 2019, Bopple has grown to be a leading hospitality technology platform facilitating over $275 million in transactions, powering more than 10 million orders and helping over 10,000 brands and businesses start, run and grow online. Bopple has formed an essential part of the success stories behind businesses like Gelato Messina, Zeus Street Greek, Agnes Bakery, Cheeky Poke Bar, Comuna Cantina, Nodo Donuts and more.
Brooke Saward
Brooki Bakehouse: Director and Founder
In just two short years Brooke Saward, the founder and owner of Brooki Bakehouse, grew her business into a globally recognisable brand in the baking and food entertainment industry. With no marketing budget, Brooke focused on organic content marketing and the positivity behind being a female-owned and operated business. Today, the company has more than 3.5 million social media followers helping to fuel its success. A cultural phenomenon, Brooki Bakehouse ships its cookies across Australia and North America, while its Brisbane bakery attracts travellers and tourists from around the globe. Meanwhile, the brand’s debut cookbook, Bake With Brooki, reached #1 Best Seller on Amazon within 24 hours of pre-order release. Beyond her foray into cookbooks, Brooke has also opened her second store, given birth to her first child and is in pre-production for a reality baking show.
Best piece of advice you’ve been given?
Being creative is not an elusive concept you either have or don’t have – it is the ability to solve problems, one at a time.
George Drivas
Airport Retail Group Australia: Director
The son of Emmanuel Drivas, co-founder of The Coffee Club, George Drivas began his journey in the hospitality industry at age 12, working in his mother’s coffee shop during the school holidays. By 20, he had funded and opened two Coffee Club franchises at Brisbane Airport’s International Terminal. George’s mission was to change people’s perceptions of the opportunities of airport food, and offer Brisbane and its travellers delicious chef-prepared meals made with locally sourced produce. Airport Retail Group Australia (ARGA) opened its first venue in 2008 and now operates a portfolio of eight venues across the Brisbane Airport precinct. The largest family- and Australian-owned tenant in Brisbane Airport, in the future ARGA plans to expand into other airports, showcasing local Queensland produce and small businesses to a national audience.
If you could meet any living person, who would it be?
Richard Branson
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Minh Trang Tran
Ming Ming’s Kitchen: Owner and director
Minh Trang Tran came to Australia as an overseas student and, after completing a Bachelor of Business and Hotel Management in Melbourne, settled in Brisbane to make her home. She and her partner founded Ming Ming’s Kitchen in 2020 when Ming was just 23 years old. Despite battling much turbulence – Covid-19, Brisbane floods, obtaining permanent residency and falling pregnant with twins – within six months of opening the restaurant was ranked the seventh best Vietnamese restaurant in Brisbane by The Courier-Mail. Unlike many Vietnamese restaurants in Brisbane, Ming Ming’s Kitchen serves Northern-style Vietnamese food, drawn from the recipes of Ming’s grandmother, mother and aunties. With her food and the ‘unique and funky’ vibes of Ming Ming’s Kitchen, Ming seeks to challenge and expand Brisbane’s conceptions of Vietnamese cuisine and culture.
If you could master one skill, what would it be?
Read other people’s minds.
Sarah Baldwin
Joy Restaurant: Owner and Head Chef
For Sarah Baldwin, a successful business is not measured by fiscal revenue. When opening Joy Restaurant in 2019 Sarah’s aim was to create a physically, financially and environmentally sustainable restaurant model that would nurture her creativity as a chef. The restaurant is a little unconventional – a 36-sqm space that hosts only ten guests at a time. But Sarah’s approach, focusing on the wellbeing of herself, her staff and her guests has more than paid off. Reservations released four months in advance sell out in ten minutes and within its first year of opening Joy Restaurant was nominated for Gourmet Traveller’s Best New Restaurant, made the Financial Review’s hottest 50 restaurants list, The Courier-Mail’s top 100 Queensland restaurants and won the Good Food Guide’s Best New Restaurant.
What’s your favourite movie or TV show of all time, and why?
Friends – it just makes me laugh, endlessly. No matter how many times I watch it. Watching Friends bloopers on YouTube calms me down after a busy day.
