In 2013 I bought a cafe called EAT in Bondi Junction. It was losing money when I took the keys. Three years later it was trading profitably, and in late 2016 I sold it as a going concern. It kept serving customers for years after I left.
I went straight into the next one — the better part of a year finding the right site and getting it ready — and in 2018 I opened Spectrum on Elizabeth Street in Surry Hills. I designed the fit-out myself, contracted the build, and personally selected and purchased every piece of equipment that went into that kitchen. Every oven, every bench, every fridge: I chose it, I bought it, and I ran a busy cafe on it.
Then came 2020. On 7 August I cancelled everything — both trading names and the company's ABN — in a single day.
COVID ended Spectrum the way it ended a lot of good venues that year.
I stayed in the industry but crossed to the other side of the counter, joining a commercial kitchen equipment supplier. I was still there in August 2023 when the company was placed into voluntary administration. Fifteen days later, I registered my own company and the name Kitchen Warehouse Online. The first store went live that October, and in May 2024 it became kwcommercial.com.au.
Back when I started in 2013, hardly any of this industry was online. You bought equipment by walking into a showroom. Prices weren't published, so there was nothing to compare them against. I didn't know one brand from another. I only roughly knew what I needed — because other people had told me. Every buying decision ran on word of mouth, and some of the gear I ended up with let me down.
KW is the store I needed back then and couldn't find: the range online, prices you can see and compare before you spend a dollar, and someone on the other end who has sat on your side of the table. I've signed the lease, drawn the floor plan, paid the trades and run the daily service. I know the difference between equipment that photographs well and equipment that survives a Saturday service — and what let me down back then isn't in my range now. That's the standard I bought to when it was my own kitchen, and it's the standard I sell to now.
— Sarah, Founder, KW Commercial Kitchen