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Having completed a degree in Catering and Hotel Management in 1987. Like many young Australians fresh from Uni, I then took off overseas and put my degree to use before returning to Australia to set up a café on Lonsdale St in 1991. During the recession of 1992 all the building close by to my café went from full, to empty.
The café sales more than halved, so in order to survive I needed to take my food to the rest of the CBD through corporate catering.
Victorians (along with my chef) were leaving en-masse to Queensland to live. At this stage I couldn’t afford to replace the chef so I took on this role myself. Times were tough, so I did the cooking, took all the catering orders by phone (no email and no internet then) and delivered them as well. I did this by myself for 5 years until I could afford a second vehicle and driver to help.Talking to customers everyday allowed me to get constant feedback and make continuous improvements to the business. This is when we started to do same day orders and delivering hot food hot. Thanks to your feedback the menu selection continued to improve.
The business grew and grew until we outgrew the café. During these early years I had met Elizabeth (Liz) and in 1995 (I think?) we married. In 1997 we opened a purpose-built catering facility on King St and became Melbourne’s only 100% corporate catering specialist and renamed the business from “Hannigan’s Sandwich Factory” to “Elizabeth Andrews Corporate Catering” (my Mum came up with the name).Around this time, we were able to employ specialist chefs who were real foodies. This made a huge difference to the presentation and quality of the catering and it took only four years to outgrow the premises before we had to move again in 2001.
Over the next few years, Liz and I had three children and decided to take a break from the business and join the rest of Victoria by moving to Queensland for a few years. We employed a General Manager to manage the business. We realised after a few years that it’s hard to replace skin in the game as the sales started to decline.
My commerce degree at Deakin Uni was followed by “a quick trip overseas” which spun out to 7 years of working in travel and tourism all around Europe. The summers were spent in the Greek islands and the winters in the ski fields (someone had to do it)!
I returned to Australia in ’96 and took up a role with Sodexo – one of the largest commercial catering companies in the world. My time with Sodexo culminated in being part of the delivery of the catering to the Olympic stadium in Sydney.
Wanderlust kicked in again and my wife and I headed to Turkey for 10 years where I set up the first non-smoking restaurant in Turkey and catered to the diplomatic community in Ankara. All the while Jules (my wife) set up a wheat breeding program for third world countries from North Africa across to the Chinese border.
Shortly after the birth of our son, we decided to return to Australia where I joined The Compass Group – the world’s largest caterer. A few years later I had the opportunity to take over the reins of Elizabeth Andrews as the General Manager while at the same time purchasing half of the company (Andrew kept his half and I bought Elizabeth’s half).
In 2019, Andre Rasquinha took over as General Manager allowing Andrew and Duncan to work on developing the business. In 1991 we had one Ford Falcon station-wagon and 2 orders a day, we now have 18 refrigerated vans and do more than 125 orders a day!
One of the most exciting chapters in our history involved building a new catering facility from the ground up in Rosslyn St, Melbourne. This is a state-of-the-art sustainable facility that allows us to continually improve our services to you. We moved in right at the start of lockdown number 1 in 2020!
But it’s our team that are the real hero’s and who deserve the real accolades – all 65 of them. Without them and without you – our loyal customers we’ve had the pleasure to serve over the past 29 years, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Thank you all for your continued support.
Take the first step towards a catering experience that sets your events apart. Contact us now to explore our menus and services tailored just for you. Excellence in corporate catering is just a conversation away.
