Macarthur Vegans struggling for Restaurant choices.

Vegans living in the Macarthur region have a lack of food options because they are affected by restaurant choices compared to other districts in NSW that are spoiled for choice.   

 Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans endeavor not to use or consume animal products of any kind.

  With few restaurants even offering vegetarian alternatives in Macarthur, vegans have resulted to eating options like salads that become mundane and boring, and have stopped this minority group from eating out in the Macarthur region as often as others.

 Jessica Buxton a local vegan has almost given up eating out at Macarthur all together,

 “There needs to be more Vegan restaurants so vegetarians and vegans have more options, somewhere to order a quick meal or to socialize with friends, I don’t think there’s as big of a market in the western suburbs as there is in the city. It would be a big financial risk to take opening a vegan restaurant here and I think that’s why Restaurants owners would be scared to do so”.

 Joanne Stepaniak author of Being Vegan said the most common reasons for becoming a vegan are ethical commitment or moral conviction concerning animal rights, the environment, human health, and spiritual or religious concerns. Vegans who live in the inner city have an abundance of vegan restaurants to choose from but in Macarthur, there are none.

 Vanessa Truip, a vegan from Ingleburn feels as though she will have to endure plain food options because of her diet in Macarthur this is due to the fact that she can’t leave her home as she is a university student and wouldn’t be able to afford the upkeep of living by herself.

Yes, I think it does, I don’t go out much because of the lack of choice for me, and none of my friends are vegan so it gets very repetitive for me because I’m stuck with the same small selection of food, but I try to make the most of it. It would be nice for someone to invest in a vegan restaurant some other people might like trying different things.

Video Poll.

To find out how locals felt about Macarthur’s cafe and restaurant options, I asked the question “What do you think about Macarthur’s cafes and restaurants and if you could change anything what would it be?” The Poll had some interesting answers!

 

Profile of Keria Mathews, owner of Nandos Macarthur.

 

nandos-honey-garlic-wings

Interview with Keria Mathews, owner of Nandos Macarthur, Kellicar Lane.

Why do you think Nandos set up in Kellicar lane?

Uhh, the location, there’s no outside location, an alfresco location in the whole Macarthur region.

 

Your shop is quite similar to Oportos, what do you think differentiates the two?

Umm, well, with us basically everything is cooked fresh to start, and the customer gets to choose if you want it spicy or not, so the levels of spiciness, and at Oportos its basically you can have sauce or no sauce, Oportos is more fast food and were more dining, sit down meal.

 

Okay, why do you think people in Macarthur will respond positively to this restaurant?

Uh,  because its actually quiet appealing to families, lots of family meals, it works out very cheap for a family to sit down and eat and uh also we cater for a lot of the young area, in Macarthur,

So the youth are more inclined to come here. Do you think it’s because it’s more affordable as well?

Yeh I think its more affordable and also I think that Nandos has become the trendy brand so a lot of young people like to come here.

 

How has the business been going lately, especially with the economic crisis?

Have you noticed a fluctuation in sales?

 

When it first hit in March there was a large reduction in sales, but um also it had a lot to deal with incidents in Macarthur square, but then after that March period, the incentives came from the government, um and sales have picked up amazingly and it’s been consistent since then.

 

If a customer asked for some suggestions if they weren’t sure what to chose what would you offer?

Um I would find out basically if they were after a burger, a wrap, or chicken, and then according to what they feel for I would give them the most popular item.

Inside Nandos Macarthur.

Outside Nandos Macarthur.

How does a specialty cafe survive during the economic downturn?

The economic crisis has played havoc on small businesses, the specialist Crepe Cafe in Macarthur has also taken a beating but will continue to fight on.

Darren Rispen owner of The Crepe Cafe, Macarthur opened up his cafe as he thought it was a good opportunity at the time in 2004.

During the past year however, as the economy has taken a turn for the worse it has effected his business in a  bad way. Initially Rispen opened the store after he went to a crepe cafe in Queensland and enjoyed them so much.

Mrs Rispen, Darren Rispen’s mother, also works at the Crepe Cafe, the families small business.  Mrs Rispen stated that,

“Eating out is more of a burden, but i still think its a good social activity that people should undertake, its good to entertain and get out with people”.

A poll was taken on-line atFreePollkit, that showed the large difference between the effect the economy has on small businesses during the economic downturn. The vote was split fifty-fifty, half the voters said they felt no effect, and the other half felt a devastating effect on their business.

Although the Crepe Cafe is  “something quite different”  according to Mrs Rispen and that  “there is nothing else quite like it in the area”  The crepe Cafe is not unique in the way that it has suffered in the recent months due to less consumers. 

“yes, yes I believe that the economy has effected every body and they are thinking more financially and they think eating out is more expensive now, and that its a necessity that they cant really afford to do!”

Despite the hardships faced by this specialist cafe, Mrs Rispen does not think it was a bad business move and that she would still recommend the choice to others.

Aroma @ the Crepe Cafe.

The Aussie Crepe

Making the crepe.

Interviewing Mrs Rispen at the Crepe Cafe.

The Crepe Cafe offer sugary and savory crepes.

Outside Crepe Cafe.

Cosy winter cafes.

Danita Singh from Gloria Jeans Campbelltown.

 

During the winter months Macarthur cafes Sweethings, Gloria Jeans, and The coffee club have noticed that different items are sold on the menu as weather dictates diet.

The Macarthur area offers an abundance of cafes that all offer something new and different from each other, however one thing that they have in common is the prevalence of certain foods being chosen in the winter months.

There has been a trend in customers ordering soups, hot beverages and toasted sandwiches. An anonymous employee of The Coffee Club Macarthur stated,

“In winter we generally get a lot of people buying things like soups and um, hotter food, that’s definitely a big trend here”

and Colin Williams from Sweethings Café also noticed consumption changes,

“The consumption changes, hot chocolates they want in winter more, if I were to recommend a customer to order something in winter it would be a latte, and an, uh, ham cheese toasted sandwich, it’s a nice little snack!”

Another trend that has been noticed by Danita Singh from Gloria Jeans Campbelltown is that “generally in winter people tend to stay in doors, it’s a lot harder to make the effort to get up and get a cup of coffee, but then again in summer, cold drinks sell quiet well. Especially when it’s too hot to go to the beach, it’s a lot busier in shopping centers with air conditioning and a nice place to sit peacefully and escape from the heat.”

Weather definitely effects business for most Macarthur cafes, with temperatures getting as low as 10 degrees, people would rather stay in doors and cook homemade meals. Macarthur’s outdoor Parisian-like café lane ‘kellicar lane’ with a lot of the seating being outdoors, exposed to the elements effects business dramatically.

Gloria Jeans’s employee Danita Singh said that Gloria Jeans still remain mostly positive all year round and that’s because they have a secret strategy, refreshing customer’s options.

“Gloria Jeans promotes a new drink each season, to increase sales. We usually bring out a new hot and cold drink to suit all needs and moods, the only negative of the winter season in that it doesn’t really get busy until midday”.

A great cup of coffee can transform your day, the  taste and aroma combine delivering you a little indulgence.

Profile: Marcus Smith from Euro Bar and Grill.

Outside Euro Bar and Grill.

Euro Bar and Grill is situated in Kellicar Lane in Macarthur.  The menu serves to tempt all tastes  with a fresh European style menu. Euro Bar and Grill specialises in  cuisine such as gourmet pizzas, pastas, grills, steaks, seafood, salads, light meals and chef’s specials. They also have vegetarian dishes and delicious homemade desserts.

I asked the assistant manager Marcus Smith to answer some questions about this restaurant.

What do you think Euro bar and grill gives to this area?

This area, um, well I think in this area each restaurant kind of has their own thing going for them around here, so were the more casual fine dining restaurant  around here, so you’ve got,  the pizza and past place,  you have the steak house, so just to add a bit of variety, to the restaurants available around here I think.

 

Why was the Euro Bar and grill opened in Macarthur?

The restaurant has been here as long as this whole section of Kelly car lane has been, so I think it was a really good opportunity to build one here though, so yeh it was certainly a large part of the shopping centre that got added on and there was and that was going to attract a lot more people, so I think it was a pretty good opportunity, to attract new people to a new area.

 Who do you think your target customers are and why do you think they have chosen to come to your restaurant?

 Um, I don’t know, its pretty hard to tell who the target customers are, I suppose the ones that prefer to actually go out and make a bit more of a night out of it, I suppose, were not really the type of restaurant that you would just pop out and grab a snack for, so we try to give more a slightly nicer dining experience I suppose.

 Why did you decide to work at Euro bar and grill?

 I had the option of a few restaurants around here, but I picked this one because I thought that it looked like a slightly nicer place to work really. So I’m glad I did come here, it’s a nice step up from the pub I used to work at.

In your opinion what is the best dish on the menu?

The best dish on the menu, uh, okay, we recently actually completely rewritten the menu, here so to be honest I haven’t tried every single thing on the menu yet, but um I’m always a bit of a steak fan myself and they cook that family well here but there are some very  popular dishes here, the barramundi with macadamia crusting, a lot of people seem just to come here for that, and its very popular, so yeh, um I’m not a huge fan of seafood but a lot of people would say otherwise.

 Have you noticed with the current economic recession that there have been less customers coming in?

 Um, the whole…the whole shopping centre area has been a lot quieter lately and especially out here where the restaurants are, There has been a lot less people as it has become colder so that doesn’t help either, but in the last month or so I have noticed that people are starting to come out again and starting to spend a bit more, I don’t know if that’s because suddenly everyone got an extra 900 dollars to spend but, yeh there was definitely a time when things got pretty quiet around here, but it is slowly starting to perk back up.

 

Have you lowered prices in the last year or so to entice more customers to come in? Have you had specials?

Well we do constantly try to have some specials of some sort running, we’ve got dinner deals going, Monday through Wednesday which is the quieter days so we have some pretty good deals going then that try and attract at least a few people that are near the shopping center to come. When we last re wrote the drinks menu we did try drop a few prices, we noticed things like the very expensive wines weren’t selling so well so we added a few more mid range wines, all our beers got a little bit cheaper as well so we have been doing that gradually.