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Friends Restaurant owners Lesley and Clyde Bevan share top tips for succeeding in Perth’s hospitality scene

Ask Perth veteran restaurateur Clyde Bevan how he feels when eating out at the restaurants of his rivals and he will tell you a story that says it all. The story isn’t about Bevan but about fellow industry stalwart Umberto Tinelli, the man behind Perth institutions like Campo Di Diori and Chianti-on-Colin. “I remember Umberto Tinelli saying to me one day: I never complain when I go to another restaurant because they’re my competitors,” Bevan says. “(He said) if I go there and there’s something wrong I don’t say anything, just on the way out I give them a hug and say ‘that was great, keep doing what you’re doing’. I thought that was pretty clever.” Bevan is not cut from quite the same cloth — “I don’t do it quite like that,” he is quick to add. But after 43 years working in Perth hospitality — including more than two decades at CBD stalwart Friends Restaurant, which he and wife Lesley have just sold — and having served everyone from Ringo Starr to Paul Keating he has a better idea than most about why some restaurants fail and others go the distance. The short version goes like this: “Hospitality is you leaving with a smile.” For the long version, The Sunday Times sat down with Bevan just weeks out from his final dinner service to pick his brains about how to succeed in Perth’s increasingly-crowded restaurant market and what so many venues that have terrific food are doing wrong. It starts with service Micromanaging is often treated like a dirty word. But when it comes to the restaurant business, it’s not being across the detail that spells trouble. “If you’re not micromanaging you’re going to go broke,” Bevan says. “Once you’ve got good staff and they know what your values are and they’re extolling those values to the customers it’s a piece of cake. But that’s probably the biggest complaint about restaurants, it’s the service that lets the people down. “For instance, if you came to our front door we’d open the door, we’d greet you, offer you a drink at the bar, take you to the table, pull out your chair, give you a napkin, give you a menu, give you a wine list, offer you a pre-dinner drink — a lemon, lime and bitters or a gin and tonic — and once you’ve ordered a drink we would offer you filtered tap water or sparkling and you’ve just done ten jobs. “When you’re effective you sell more drinks, you sell more food and people are happier and probably, if anything, that’s the mistake that a lot of hospitality venues make.” It’s not just about the food Hand-in-glove with the value of service is the importance of the big picture. Good food without good service and a pleasant atmosphere, from the art on the walls to the music that’s not too loud to talk over, isn’t enough. “The food in a lot of places is sensational,” Bevan says. “I went to a good restaurant the other day and the food was great and I looked up and there was no salt and pepper on the table and I couldn’t catch the eye of a staff member, who were all talking at the bar. “It’s the whole thing that makes someone survive and that’s why you see these restaurants that come and go.” He said Friends, with its soft leather chairs, flattering lighting and music controlled via an app on his phone, has survived because it was a place people came to “dine rather than eat”. “You talk to one another, hear the music, you can look at the paintings: there’s a difference between dining out and eating,” he says. “That’s why we’ve survived — and the fact that we’ve got great staff and we’ve got chefs who care. “I see the hospitality industry as about the whole package: not just the food, not just the venue, it’s the whole thing. It’s the service, it’s the smile that opens the door, that says thank you (and) goodbye, it’s the whole package and I think that’s where a lot of people get it wrong and that’s why a lot of restaurants get written up as the best restaurant (then) three years later they’re gone. “People want to come in and feel special. We want people to leave here with a smile on their face and wanting to come back again: if I haven’t done that, I failed. I’m not gonna please everybody, not everyone wants that. And some people have preconceived ideas of what fine dining should be.” Everyone mucks in Should you happen to drop by Friends after closing, when the last table has been cleared and the final customer has rolled unsteadily into the night, you’re likely to find Lesley cleaning the toilets — the cleaners just can’t match her exacting standards — or washing the tea-towels. Similarly, if you turn up at a particularly busy time and face a bit of a wait you’ll likely get to see some of Bevan’s card tricks. He used to tell customers jokes too but those are, he fears, no longer quite so politically correct in 2022. It’s this attitude that has underpinned the success of the couple’s hospitality ventures, which arguably started in Fremantle with the nightclub Sirocco but really hit its stride with Alexander’s in the CBD in the 1980s. The latter was such a success the pair sold it for a “stupid price” and took over Dear Friends restaurant in Caversham before coming back to the city with Friends in the late 1990s. Bevan’s work ethic was evident at a young age: he was a hyperactive child and, by the time he was 19, he had five jobs, including working at R&I Bank, gigging as a DJ and putting together furniture at a factory with his dad. “I worked seven days a week and I never ever thought I was hard done by,” he says. In particular, he credits the bank with setting him up for success in the latter part of his career. “I learned how to count,” he says. “One of the most important things you need to learn when you go into business is how to count.” He also got “very good at making the customer feel that they’re really your most important person”. “If someone needs serving you get up and serve them: there was no ‘that’s not my job’ and that’s always been my philosophy in hospitality,” he says. “No one ever says to me that’s not my job. It’s everybody’s job.” Even after more than two decades at Friends, Bevan says he is there for every service. That dedication comes at a price. One of the reasons the Bevans are selling up — Friends’ head chef Graham Jessop, a former sous chef for Heston Blumenthal has bought it — is the state of Bevan’s knees after years spent going up and down the restaurant’s stairs every night and working 70-80 hour weeks. “I feel a little bit like an AFL footballer who has to retire because I’ve got a bad knee,” he says. “I’m 68 and it’s time to go and live life. I mean, we’ve got a couple of cruises got lined up. We’d like to go do that long drive, so to speak. And I’d like to work as a consultant to to to the industry.“ Never rest on your laurels In 1995 the Bevans’ Swan Valley restaurant, Dear Friends, won Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards, a prize that included a trip to London and Paris so indulgent that Bevan likes to joke they only moved to the CBD site in order to have another crack at the award. But, while the pair have collected various accolades over the years, many of which are prominently displayed at the venue, Bevan says awards can be a mixed blessing. “Hospitality is a bit like you’re in sport, it’s like being a performer singer,” he says. “You’re only as good as your last performance no matter what you did yesterday. No matter what you won yesterday, it’s what you’re going to do today. “That is the most important thing and that’s where a lot of people sort of win Gold Plates and then they drop the ball. And that’s the worst thing you can do because what happens is people come because you won and they come with expectations. and if you don’t meet them, you’re in big trouble.” Don’t rush the customer At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Perth’s hospitality industry was in dire straits, many venues introduced time limits on tables, ranging from as little as 90 minutes to two hours. For some venues, it was a matter of survival but Bevan says it’s something he would never do, nor does it fit with Friends’ business model, which is high-end with a big average spend. The Saturday night degustation menu, for example, means nobody is getting in and out for less than $170 a head. But trends come and go. Bevan says back in the day the ideal time to wait between courses was considered to be 45 minutes. Now it’s more like 15 minutes. The other biggest change to Perth’s food scene is simply the sheer amount of choice now. You can grab a burger one night, boneless duck and plum sauce the next and a sandwich when that’s what you’re in the mood for, he says. “It’s terrific.” Look after your staff Talk to any hospitality worker in Perth right now and you’ll discover how desperate the whole industry is for staff. It’s hardly the first time this has happened — the peak of the mining boom was another tough time — but it has led to some venues scaling back hours. Bevan says that, while they are also always on the hunt for staff, there are some ways of operating that make it easier to attract and retain good people. “I think you need to pay them a little bit more than what they get,” he says. “You need to give them a drink and some dinner, care for them. Give them a birthday present, give them a Christmas present.” He also, he only half-jokes, has “all girls on the floor”. “They’re amazing: they turn up 15 minutes early, take a 15-minute break and they absolutely care about their job, that’s pretty special,” he says. There have also been times when he has had to go into bat for his staff, including one night when a rude table of 20 people came in for dinner and one diner told a waitress he would “break your f...ing wrist” if she cleared a glass. “I went to the boss, the main protagonist, and I said ‘when you’ve finished your main you’ve got to leave’. He just stood up and said ‘everybody out’. The place was packed. “I’m like (former AFL coach) John Worsfold: when he crossed the white line he turned from being a very quiet and gentle fellow to someone who took no prisoners.” Overwhelmingly, Bevan says, customers are nice but every so often “you get someone who’s just so unpleasant to deal with or has a complaint or something and they’re the ones that you obsess over and you’re frustrated about it”. Don’t judge a book by its cover (or a customer by their t-shirt) Over the years Friends has hosted some big names from politics and music: two of Bevan’s loves. Everyone from former ALP prime ministers Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating to former Beatle Ringo Starr have been in for a meal, while the restaurant also hosts regular small-scale concerts, featuring the likes of Daryl Braithwaite, Normie Rowe and John Paul Young. But the one-time Lotterywest chairman and current City of Perth councillor is far from snooty when it comes to his guests. Most diners dress up for the occasion but he is not particularly bothered when people take a more relaxed approach to dressing for dinner, from the AFL footballers who turn up in thongs — usually with a girlfriend dressed to the nines beside them — to the recent customer who turned up in a t-shirt and jeans only to drop more than $5000 on dinner. Love your work Behind all the long nights and the years of hard work, is the Bevans’ love of what they do. Not just the food or the restaurant’s famed wine cellar — a customer, upon hearing they were selling, recently offered Bevan $1 million for the lot — but the customers themselves, the daily grind and the challenge to see off every customer with a smile. “I think the moral of the story is find something you really love doing,” Bevan says. “It’s hard. Numerous times we actually slept on the floor overnight (of the restaurant) to be there for an early start the next morning. “We do 70-80 hours a week, answer the phone 24 hours a day. And I think that’s why we’re successful: because we both do.”

exclusiveFriends Restaurant owners Lesley and Clyde Bevan share top tips for succeeding in Perth’s hospitality scene

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Friends Restaurant owners Lesley and Clyde Bevan share top tips for succeeding in Perth’s hospitality scene